Darkest Before…
The Unicorn lunged as Remi cried out, its horn flashing bright white with a light that temporarily obscured its body as it rushed towards the paladin. Its speed seemed to make it grow sleeker, elongating, slimming until, as the light faded, a glittering glaive of silver with a diamond blade tumbled towards him. The blade glowed with a soft light, radiating a gentle warmth that seemed to keep both darkness and fear itself at bay, should Remi choose to pick it up.
The Wyrm uncoiled as it launched itself towards Isla with a roar, flames streaking from its mouth. The blaze streamed along its body, covering it in smoke and fire as it attacked, but what impacted the Halfling woman was only ash, and two curved short swords that had once been fangs – long daggers for a taller person - of a dark red metal with ruby pommel stones that seemed to trail shadows in their wake. Their edges gleamed with translucent sharpness, as efficient and painlessly lethal as a fresh scalpel blade, though stronger by far.
The Gryphon shrieked as it pounced at
Just as the Manticore leapt for
Jigano slammed her staff down with a cry, the metal-shod foot of the weapon cracking out over the sounds of battle. ”Hold!”
A wave of light poured from the staff and swept over the floor at waist-height. When it reached the remaining constructs they paused, movements slowing until they stood frozen, though gears and sparks showed an inner strain against the spell the sorceress had cast. ”Run for it!” she called, panting at the effort it took to maintain the magic, even with the staff’s incredible power supplementing her own. ”To the inner door!”
The outer would be locked; the story wouldn’t let them retreat, she suspected grimly. The only way through was forward, and the only way forward was deeper into the tower. As her team passed her she began to back up as well, sweat streaming down her face.
The Gryphon was the first to break free, shaking off the magic holding it in place with an echoing roar, and rather than fight a losing battle Jigano turned and fled, hitting the door with her slight weight if one of her companions hadn’t opened it already.
She tumbled into the next room – larger, echoingly large, draped in faded banners and eerie shadows – and spun to make sure the door was closed behind them. Because she was focused on that she didn’t see the ebon throne at the end of the dark red aisle, or the man seated up on it who grinned a toothy welcome to her companions.
He was bald, completely hairless, with skin as pale and dry as old paper stretched tight over bones that seemed ready to cut through it if he moved too suddenly. His robes were rich fabrics in sober colors. A golden circlet sat upon his brow, and a bright green pendant that looked unsettlingly like an eye hung from his neck, but his jet black eyes with no differentiation between sclera, iris, or pupil belied his human form. ”Well, well. Welcome, at last. I’ve been waiting for you… but you already knew that, didn’t you?” His chuckle was raspy, a painful sound, though he didn’t seem to mind. If the heroes tried to move they would find themselves caught in place, held no less surely than Jigano had held the constructs in the entry hall. While they watched he stood languidly from his throne and stretched, a casual gesture at first – but he kept stretching, growing up and up and up, body and dark robes twisting and cracking as they grew and reformed until a black dragon crouched upon the dais, ten feet tall at the shoulder, with a face more skull than skin and the patchy, emaciated look of a corpse about it. The only color about him remained the circlet on his brow – and the green jewel – eye? – that had become nestled into the flaking scales of his breast.
”You’re the first to make it this far in, well… ever,” he chuckled again, that dry, rasping sound. But magnified now. ”I admit to some amusement at your progress. Something I have sorely lacked in the past century. So… allow me to offer you something in return. Immortality… to never age, never grow sick, never wither and die. And all I ask in turn… is that you stay by my side. Do we have a deal?” The jewel at his breast gleamed, a faint glow coming from it as he arched his long neck to look down at the gathered mortals—
And his eyes widened a split second before he flinched away as Jigano’s staff flared brightly. As the light washed over the group the magical paralysis was washed away and they found themselves free to move again. The sorceress stumbled, falling to one knee from the exertion of dispelling the binding, but his blue eyes blazed no less fiercely as he glared at the dragon, seeing, for a moment, an overlay on his vision of a different monster, a different place… a team who had very nearly left him for dead in a similar fight. ”The circlet or the jewel—His power is in one or both of them! Break them, and we break him.”
With a roar of anger the dragon reared back. The heroes had a few precious seconds to begin to move and then a gout of black flames erupted from its mouth, scorching stone and setting faded banners ablaze. Pushing through that fiery curtain it aimed a snap at the Remi with jaws that could crush armor as easily as skulls.
Its lashing tail whipped around to try and catch Isla with bone-breaking impact if it struck.
One foreclaw scored the flagstones and flung four of them at
The gem in its breast flashed a brilliant, poisonous emerald green, a ray of light striking out snake-quick at the weary priestess. She flung her staff forward with a cry of ”Shield!” but speaking the spell’s name slowed her enough that a flicker of light got past the growing golden sphere of protection that expanded from her staff at the command. Blue eyes had just enough time to widen in surprise before her foot turned grey and leaden. She looked down, horrified, as tendrils of stone seemed to flow up her veins, and had just enough time to raise her staff defensively before the petrification overtook her completely, turning the once-bard to a voiceless statue in skimpy silk-and-silver armor, holding a glowing staff in marble hands—and covered in an impenetrable golden shield of force.
