14th Day of Goodmonth, 565 CY
Drachensgrab Hills, The Pomarj
Although the missiles either passed over their heads or ricocheted harmlessly off the tops of their upheld shields, Aslan couldn't resist letting out a wordless yell of frustration as he and Elrohir charged into the room. The paladin didn't have the luxury of turning to glare back at Argo, so he settled instead for a glare at Elrohir, who was maintaining pace right along with him as the two lumbered forward as quickly as their plate mail would allow, swords raised for the battle ahead.
Elrohir gave an answering look of commiseration, but his attention quickly returned to his surroundings. Even having been informed beforehand, the ranger was impressed by the size of this chamber. The walls and floor seemed carved out of yellow sandstone, as best he could tell. As Aslan had mentioned, pillars- four rows of four each- traversed the room. The row of pillars closest to their position on either side were each wreathed in wispy flames that gave off light but no heat. Each column, Ionic in style but without decoration, was a little over three feet in diameter.
The reptile Aslan had spoken of was now only fifteen feet in front of them. Its narrow head turned towards the duo and cocked slightly. It almost seemed as if the beast was trembling slightly. Its club-like tail waved gently, as if in a breeze.
Perhaps sixty feet or so beyond the creature, Elrohir caught a glimpse of the seated gnoll, and the others clustered around him. He hoped his wife and the two wizards could deal with them, but he was forced to turn his immediate attention to the turtle-like monster ahead of him and the surrounding pillars. Elrohir tensed himself for more crossbow fire, but none came.
Argo maintained the smile on his face, but his body language was all business as he moved into the room, more slowly than the front line had. Talass came in alongside the tall ranger, but then began to move off towards the right slightly as Bigfellow did the same to the left. Argo caught a glimpse of the priestess scowling at him before she turned her face away.
"Idiot," came wafting back towards Bigfellow. The rest was incomprehensible, but then the appearance of a shimmering, silver glow around the cleric told Argo that Talass had raised her protective shield of faith.
Argo scanned each pillar in turn. He could tell from shifting shadows at least some of the pillars that were hiding gnolls behind them, but no one was giving him a direct line of fire, until Bigfellow saw the tip of a hyena head peer around the closest pillar from the furthest row on the left; about forty feet away. Now he could see the crossbow aiming at him.
The humanoid squealed and staggered back. Argo's shot had intended to strike right between the creatures pale, yellow-green eyes, but it had delivered only a grazing head wound instead. Argo's grip tightened on his bow even as he went for another arrow. Elrohir's bow wasn't strung quite the same as Argo's and he hadn't thought to fix it before they entered battle.
A trickle of blood matting its fur, the gnoll snarled at Bigfellow, raised its weapon again and fired, but the bolt went wide.
The two mages were next to enter, and each immediately began moving along the side the room they had entered from, keeping the wall to their back. Cygnus went to the left and Zantac to the right.
Like Zantac, Cygnus had lost his quarterstaff in the fiery battle against the stalagmite-creature. The tall wizard kept one hand on his spell component pouch while the other shielded his eyes as he scanned the room. He was now directly opposite one of the rows of pillars, the closest being about twenty five feet in front of him. He hoped there was no gnoll standing behind it, because he planned to make for it and then use it for cover while he fired off spells at the big gnoll at the far end of the room.
First though, he had a personal spell to cast. Keeping one eye on the reptilian beast that Elrohir and Aslan were heading towards, Cygnus reached into his pouch and came up with a small piece of tortoise shell.
Hope this wasn't a relative of yours, he thought.
Zantac was in shadow. Cygnus was carrying the continual light stone, and no magic flames or glowing swords were close enough to give him full illumination. This gave the Willip wizard no illusionary comforts about his safety, however. He was well aware that all the gnolls could see just fine in darkness.
Zantac, by personal choice, did not have the spell memorized that Cygnus was at that moment casting on himself. He too was opposite a pillar wreathed in continual flames, and he decided to make for it. He took a deep breath and dashed forward.
Success! The mage practically wrapped his arms around the pillar. He slid round a little, so he was now hidden from view from the throne's inhabitant at the far end. He was happy that he could call this pillar his own.
He was less happy at the leering gnoll that peered around the pillar about twenty feet to his right and raised its crossbow at him.
A second later, an arrow slammed into the creature's weapon, knocking it out of its hands. The gnoll yelped in surprise, but then bent down and picked up the weapon with its left hand, while still waving the right one around in pain.
Zantac followed the gnoll's gaze. Standing right where he had been along the wall, was Tojo. The samurai was already drawing another arrow from his quiver.
The prayer of thanks was still forming on Zantac's lips when two bolts slammed into the pillar inches from his face.
Tojo effortlessly dodged the bolt that came his way. The gnoll that had launched it was still hurting too much to keep its aim steady. The samurai glanced over to his left just in time to see Nesco Cynewine emerge through the doorway, an arrow already strung on her longbow.
"Nesco-san!" Tojo shouted and pointed with his right hand, currently clutching an arrow at the pillar that was thirty feet beyond Zantac's.
Nesco frowned. She could just barely make out a small piece of grey fur around the left side of the indicated column, but her target was a good sixty feet away, in less than perfect lighting, and behind cover. Trying to ignore everything else, she pulled back the bowstring, took a bead and fired.
Her aim was true, but the gnoll was fast. It ducked back in the nick of time and the arrow went sailing past.
That was it, Nesco thought grimly as she yanked another arrow from her quiver. That was my one allotted miss. There won't be another.
Elrohir and Aslan stood their ground and awaited the beast's charge.
And charge it did at them, although in a rather ungainly fashion. The creature's beak-like mouth opened, and an odd chit-chit sound came from within; hardly the roar the warriors had been expecting.
Elrohir was standing just to Aslan's left, but the monster ran straight at the paladin. Aslan had plenty of time to get into optimal position.
His sword connected.
And in that split-second, there was a distortion, like a heat ripple on a blazing hot day, and the image of the creature seemed to peel away and vanish like a mirage.
Except that there was still something there.
This creature bore only a superficial resemblance to what they had just seen. It was mostly rust-red in color. It still had four legs, but they were like those of a giant insect. The beast's squat, humped body was covered with thick, lumpy, plates. Its tail was covered in thinner plates and ended in a three-pronged, bony projection. A long, feathery antenna sprouted from just underneath each of the creature's eyes.
The thing squealed with agony as Aslan's blade bit deep into its back, and a rust-red fluid spurted out of the wound. Satisfied, Aslan pulled his blade free-
Except that there was no more blade. Only a hilt.
And Aslan suddenly realized this creature looked familiar.
"Ruuusteeerrr!"
The cry altered the trajectory of Elrohir's own swing as surely as if the paladin has grabbed his sword arm and jerked it.
It meant a miss, but that didn't matter. Gokasillion's sweeping blade leveled off into a horizontal arc in front of the creature. One of its antennas swept underneath the sword; the other just above it.
Elrohir gasped; his eyes wide. He took a step backwards in reflex. This required a bold and clever shift in strategy.
Of exactly what that would be, the ranger had no idea.
The gnoll on the throne stood up.
Lord, he's a big one all right, thought Cygnus, who was currently devoting the most attention to this figure. The gnoll gestured to his left and to his right, and both sets of gnolls, living and undead, came running and shambling forward. In a matter of seconds they had covered nearly have the distance of the chamber and seemed to be heading for Aslan and Elrohir.
A bolt slammed into the wall about ten feet to Cygnus' left. Another passed somewhere between him and Argo, so far off he couldn't tell which one of them had been the intended target. When he looked back at the large gnoll still at the far end of the chamber, something had changed.
Only a shifting, blurry outline of the gnoll could be seen. It looked as if the creature was leaving smeared images of itself as it moved. Cygnus' jaw tightened.
A blur spell. He's a goddammed arcanist. Plus a warrior, a priest probably, and who in the Abyss knows what else.
"Change of plan!" yelled the mage to anybody and everybody. "Take out that gnoll in back- now!"
Aslan heard Cygnus, but obeying wasn't an option. He was in far too much trouble.
The only other time the paladin had ever encountered a rust monster, he had never gotten this close to it, and someone else had managed to distract the beast with a large amount of metal until it could be attacked en masse and slain.
Now Aslan could see six gnolls with halberds coming at him. The pitiful amount of iron in their weapons wasn't going to distract the ruster; not with a veritable feast- the paladin's plate mail- right in front of it.
Aslan dropped the hilt of what had once been his sword and carefully backed several steps away and to the right from the monster. He could in theory draw his longbow and might even be able to finish off the ruster with it- but that would leave him a poor position several seconds later when he was surrounded by a pack of bloodthirsty gnolls. As far as he could see, his viable options were limited to one.
The paladin turned his head just so; made sure Elrohir was out of the line of fire and let loose a psionic blast that caught both the rust monster and the charging gnolls in its field. The ruster let out a squeal and toppled over onto its side, stunned.
The oncoming gnolls, however, were completely unaffected.
Despite himself, Aslan's mouth fell open.
What the-
Elrohir shot a look over at Aslan when the rust monster crumpled to the ground. He wasn't sure if the paladin had used his Talent or not, but there was no more time to make an issue of it. The ruster was no longer an immediate threat, but there was no possibility of concentrating upon the tall gnoll in the back.
Elrohir was facing six onrushing ghouls.
The ranger began moving to the right, almost in a side-stepping fashion. He passed in front of Aslan and wound up about ten feet in front of Zantac's pillar. If all six ghouls surrounded Elrohir, he knew he'd be finished. A quick backwards glance showed him that Talass was just about in range, but the ranger privately was unsure whether his wife had the strength of faith to turn all six.
Not that he would ever mention that to her, of course.
Still, even two or three less would reduce his upcoming burden significantly. Elrohir tensed up. He hated ghouls; not just on the general revulsion that most living things shared for the undead, but for their sheer horrible appearance. And gnoll ghouls were particularly ghastly.
The mangy, maggot-ridden fur; the taut, dead skin underneath stretched too-tightly over bones; the unbelievable putrid smell of-
Wait a minute. Putrid smell?
The nose gnolls, he had said earlier. And the cleanest gnoll Elrohir had ever seen still smelled like a buzzard taking a bath in a dung wagon.
Like Cygnus before him, Elrohir yelled out to everybody and nobody in particular.
"There's no smell! Those ghouls don't smell at all! None of these gnolls do!"
Argo was too far back to tell if the oncoming gnolls had any smell to them, but his team leader's announcement cued Bigfellow's mind to the oddity that a dozen gnolls would normally be making a lot more noise than these particular ones were.
Which was in fact, none at all.
At the last moment, Argo swung his bow around, and his arrow flew right at the chest of one of the gnoll ghouls- and then continued onwards passed the empty space it had occupied a moment before.
"Illusionist, let the sham be exposed!" Bigfellow yelled out as he drew another arrow and started cautiously to advance.
Talass pondered as she slowly moved forward as well and wound up standing next to Aslan. A quick shared glance told her that Aslan wasn't totally convinced. Were these ghouls mere illusions? Many illusions vanished when disbelieved.
These weren't going anywhere.
An idea came to Talass. If the gnoll ghouls were real, they'd react to her turning according to the level with which she was able to channel her god's power. If they were illusionary, they'd react as their controller would have them plausibly react.
The question is, what does that tall gnoll know about me? She thought to herself, with the hint of a smile at the linguistic play. What I want him to, was her answer.
The priestess of Forseti held forth her holy symbol and shouted, "These creatures are as nothing to me! Not even a test of my faith! Begone, corpsewalkers, in the name of the Justice Bringer!"
Without a sound, all six ghouls seized up and crumpled to the floor.
"Well done, Talass!" Aslan complimented her.
"One way or the other, I suppose," she mumbled back as she readied her warhammer.
Breathing hard. Cygnus continued to peer around his pillar at the blurred form of the tall gnoll at the far end of the chamber.
For all his experience in combat, the Aardian wizard did not often come up in battle against fellow magic-users. Cygnus had never had any formal training in magical battle. He could remember vividly his mentor Part-Hew staring at him after an eighteen year-old Cygnus had finally broached the subject.
"There's nothing to teach, boy. Waste of your time and mine to fill your head with all that Guild nonsense." Part-Hew's vivid grey eyes had flashed at him over his white handlebar mustache.
Cygnus had frowned. "But what if-"
"What if you find yourself facing a fellow mage in battle?" Part-Hew snorted. "Very simple, boy. You know how to identify the winner of a magical duel?"
"Umm," the apprentice wizard could only guess. "The one's who still standing?"
"But why is he the one who's still standing?"
Cygnus tried to think like Part-Hew. Simply.
"Because he struck first?"
Part Hew snorted again, grabbed Cygnus' hair and pulled the taller mage's face down so that it was level with his.
"No, boy. Because he struck last."
Cygnus took one more deep breath in a failed attempt to steady his nerves, and jogged forward and a little to the right. He stopped about ten feet to the left of Argo, who looked at him, concerned.
"Cygnus, get back to cover!"
The tall magic-user shook his head. "Don't need it!" he shouted, as much for the benefit of any nearby gnolls as for his teammates. He then spared a second for a grim smile at Bigfellow.
"Gotta go with what you know!"
The orange sphere streaked across the chamber.
Despite being over a hundred feet away from the point of detonation, the flash and roar of the fireball's explosion was enough to make Zantac wince.
When he looked again, a blurry, staggering form was screaming in pain at the far end of the room. Wisps of smoke rose from it.
Zantac adjusted his gaze. The six gnolls with halberds were continuing to advance towards him and his friends, heedless of their master's condition.
The Willip wizard thought hard. Were these gnolls mere illusions? Probably, but if they weren't, there wasn't going to be any second chances before they were on them. He wasn't sure where to direct his spells.
Unlike Cygnus, Zantac had undergone training in magical combat…
"I heard someone say once that a magical duel is like a chess game." Zelhile's stony face had lasted the entire length of the lesson, and now that it was nearly over, he let it come close to a thin smile. Then he shrugged. "I suppose, if chess were played in seconds and the loser was executed. Pretty poor analogy, in my book."
His dark eyes had flashed over Zantac, Martan, Aimee and the others.
"The single most important thing you have to decide is when to switch over from defense to offense. Too soon, and you leave yourself open for a devastating riposte. Too late, and your opponent is so shined up that you won't make any difference. How do we find this moment, people?" The Guildmaster addressed his students with an expression that clearly indicated he didn't think anyone would be able to answer him correctly.
"Detect?" Zantac had ventured.
Zelhile gave a practiced sigh. "Even if you ever learn to quicken it, Zantac- and do note my use of the word if- it'd take far too long for the really useful information to come to you, and by then you're waiting for a richly deserved shallow grave. Anyone else?"
No one had dared. Only in his eyes did the Guildmaster's irritation come through.
"Knowledge, people! Your brain; your skills. The spellcraft I've vainly been trying to chisel into your adamantine skulls is the only thing you can rely on when you need it! The rules are the same for all of us, people."
Zelhile had ended the lesson by turning his back on them. "Learn them."
I wonder if you ever found yourself in a situation like this, you bastard, Zantac mentally groused at his former teacher. Still, his subconscious mind tried to arrange everything into an orderly package for him.
Zantac had never been able to memorize the fireball spell, but a lightning bolt should certainly work. The range was farther than he had ever thrown one, but Zantac was sure the bolt would reach.
Pretty sure.
The problem was that the six gnolls were in the way. If they were mere illusions, it wouldn't be an issue, but if they weren't, the bolt wouldn't get all six, and the tall gnoll would still be standing.
Zantac made his decision, and cast.
The gnolls disappeared.
Talass and Aslan looked back and to their right at Zantac, who allowed himself a smile. His dispel had proved the gnolls illusions, and he still had his lightning bolt in reserve.
"The field is cleared, my friends. At 'em!"
Tojo, now halfway towards the gnoll that he had wounded earlier, stopped only long enough to let fly another arrow. The gnoll yelped in pain and ducked back around the pillar it was hiding by.
The samurai narrowed his eyes. Neither wound had been mortal. He saw a furry hand sneak back into view and snatch a wooden shield that had been leaning up against the pillar.
Tojo did what he always did in combat. He waited for his moment.
Nesco moved forward cautiously and let fly an arrow at the gnoll Argo had already hit. The missile sliced by the creature's right shoulder as soon as it came into view. A thin stream of blood spurted from the wound, but the humanoid quickly ducked back behind its pillar again.
I think it's time you and I danced, the ranger thought as she re-slung her bow.
The three gnolls on the left side of the chamber, displaying remarkable coordination, peered out from behind cover and fired their crossbows simultaneously at Cygnus.
Two of the three bolts struck the wizard full in the chest.
And bounced off.
Cygnus turned back to the others. "Told you I didn't need cover."
The light dawned on Elrohir. "That's the same spell as that black potion I drank back in Highport!"
The tall mage raised an eyebrow. "Not bad for a layman's guess."
"Mind brewing up some for us next time?" quipped Argo.
"Sure," Cygnus replied. "As soon as we have the money, and the equipment, and the spare time-"
Elrohir cried out. A bolt had struck him in the chest as well, but the plate had deflected it. The impact actually rocked the ranger back on his heels, but he managed to retain his balance. "All right, Cygnus- I get the message!"
Two more bolts came flying at Tojo. One, fired by the very gnoll he was advancing on, struck the samurai in his right side. Tojo grimaced and halted his approach but made no move to pull the projectile out.
"Tojo!" Aslan shouted. "Are you-"
Without warning, color flooded the room.