Rashemen Book 2

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Atten slept an amazing sleep, the most rejuvenating he could remember. He could feel the living force flowing through him with a more precise awareness than he could ever remember.

 

Something hummed by Huiy'Trej's head and an arrow thudded into the ground in front of him. But before he could turn, three more hit him almost at the same time from progressively lower angles, piercing through his forearm, hip, and ankle. A moment later, Delphinae came screaming out of the forest wielding her claw and hoping to catch the flayer while it was still stunned by the engineered barrage.

Though it worked to the extent that such a surprise attack could, Del was a step late for the time that the three hits had bought her. Even so, she still managed to score a light hit before the flayer could twist away.

[ November 28, 2005, 02:25: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

Jex's swords snapped to his hands. He was angry more angry than he had ever been. Alexi had been killed by the demon who Jex wanted. He knew Hui'Trej was the greater threat but Del, and the drow brothers would deal with him. Even though Jex had the chaotic commands cast on him.

Launching out of the tree, he slashed hard at the demons back, slashing through the beasts wings. "I told my blades would hurt" he whispered in the demons ear.

Kelvados and Delinos jumped to attention and were focused on Hui'Trej. All the pain and anger from their time as his slaves and prisoners rushed in and quickly forced the fear out of their senses. Delinos dropped back and quickly started casting a spell something that would cause Huiy'Treg trouble, as he finished, a green dart flew from his hands and sunk in the mindflayers shoulder. Right away acid started pumping into the flayers body.

Kelvados drew his blades and started to rush the Mind Flayer. stopping he thought of a better attack one that wouldn't allow the mind flayer to hit him with psionics. He selected a small dagger and threw it as hard as possible.

Huiy'Trej was hurt, the Acid arrow was killing him as were Dels shots. He barely noticed a silver flash flying at his face. He ducked, but the blade took one of his tenticles. Howling with rage he unleashed a blast of psionics not really focusing on anyone, hopeing it would stun someone and allowing to what he does.

 

Atten felt the ripples in the living force and awoke. Soon their was yet another battle going on around him. But before he could do anything he felt his mind explode.

 

Sepp rushed at the demon, eager to put his own blades into it to go along with Jex's. Just as he was about to reach it, hornets started stinging the back of his brain, or at least that's what it felt like. They quickly moved forward, stinging next the parts that controlled his body, and he fell to the ground, then the parts of his brain that controlled his thoughts, and

.....all
..........went
....................black.

 

Waking at first sound of battle Nakia leaped into the forest shadows. Pulling her crossbow and a bolt she used the stone to touch the bolt concentrating on a special metal made from a rock from the sky. The bolt glowed briefly and became a dark shiny metal. She aimed for Huiy'Trej's chest and fired. The bolt flew fast and true but at the last moment Huiy'Trej moved slightly. The bolt hit deep into his chest but missed his heart. He turned injured the missals flying at him from all sides.

He staggered, whirled and then cast a dimension door spell and dissapeared as the sun rose bright and strong filling the glade with light.

Nakia turned her attention to the Demon but Jex appeared to be doing right well with that fight and enjoying it.

 

Maron dropped to her knees as Jex climbed the tree. She reached into her tunic, and produced a silver medallion in the shape of a woman's head. CLutching it between her hands, she began to pray, singinging sweetly, but quietly to avoid disturbing the others. Her voice carried across the camp site on the slight breeze for a minute or two before she finished, kissed the medallion, and replaced it.

Smiling as she felt the magic return, she leant back against a tree and wrapped her cloak around herself.

 

The demon was full of rage and pain, one of his wings was severed and now his leader had fled. All he wanted was to destroy, to kill and to devour. But all he could feel was a growing pain in his back. Attempting to focus his rage and block out his pain he turned and raised his huge hands in the air. He started to bring them down to smash the prone Sepp into nothingness, but felt the same burning pain plunge into his ribs and one slash across his eyes leaving him blind and scared. "I told you I would kill you." He heard being whispered into his ear again, and swung wildly. The pain from the god blessed blades was almost unbearable. He wanted to run, but he couldn't focus his magic through the pain. He was swingly wildly and felt himself make contact. He knew he had landed a solid blow but was unsure of what had happened.

Jex was still angry and having been hit made it worse. Spitting a gob of blood as well as a couple broken teeth he stood from the ground once again. Even though the demon was about to die. He heard the demons feeble attempts at magic and smiled. He should torture the beast. He hated demons so. He could feel the lust that drow felt with the hatred of other creeds. "Enjoy your view of this world, for you won't see it again." Was all Jex said as he plunged both scimitars deep into the demons chest.

 

The demon opened his eyes one last time, and saw Jex standing there smiling.

"Damn it all!" It cursed. "I promised myself that I'd best you myself, but good thing I had a back up plan, it'll be worth the one thousand and one years of servitude to be able to chew on your spirit for eternity!"

With that he gripped into the fresh wounds on his chest and pulled himself apart. Instead of a mess of guts and gore, a black, firey gate appeared, and through it slithered another fiend.

This one was female, at least her torso was, with six arms, each one weilding a unique looking blade, her snake bottom finally slid out of the other demon's corpse and she looked down at it in contempt. "Good to have you back in my thrall for awhile, old friend." Then she looked appraisingly at Jex.

"Hmmn, you're not who I'd hoped you be. From this pig's description of you and your fighting, I thought I might finally get a chance to repay that Drizzt bastard for this," she said, motioning to a deep scar that marred her otherwise beautiful face. "But I suppose you'll turn out to be enough of a blade master to warrant my coming here. When you die, you can tell those who ask that The Blade Singer ended your miserable life."

She suddenly advanced at Jex, four blades swinging so fast, that they seemed to sing, and two held back in guard, just in case the impossible happened and the mortal managed to swing a blow at her.

Back where the mind flayer had been, another flash of light brought it back to the scene, all of its wounds miraculously healed. It moved in to Del and was about to suck her brains out.

[ November 29, 2005, 00:15: Message edited by: Scot ]

 

Delinos screamed in anger and charged the mind flayer, dodging the psionics. He rolled beside the flayer, adn stood up behind it. It was parrying hits and blasting psionics.

Delinos sliced its head off.

 

Jex was pressed hard. This was definitley one of his biggest challenges. The haste spell fom the amulet would only last so much longer and he could already feel the strength enhancing spells wearing off from Marons attempts to help Jex fight the Mindflayer. All he could do was block he couldn't even attempt an offensive. Ducking, diving, parrying the demons blades, Jex felt scared.

Still in the thralls of bloodlust, Jex could feel that he might not escape this fight and the others would be doomed as well. The demon was skilled, quick and strong, she worked Jexs blades low, then high, then forced his arms wide open, suddenly attacking with her second set of arms. The blades plunged towards Jex. He stared in fear and allowed his instincts to take over. Flipping backwards through the air, he barely escaped the strikeing blades. Lashing one foot he manged to kick the Bladesinger in the chin snapping her head straight back, and breaking her nose. "Help me Ilmater, I need you more now than ever!" Jex shouted with a laboured breath.

The demon pressed again, slashing from all angles. Jex could barely keep up. He dodged more blows than he parryed. One slipped through and left a stinging cut across his bicep. It was the first of what Jex thought would be many strikes.

[ November 29, 2005, 04:11: Message edited by: Benan ]

 

The next blade cut across Jex's forehead, but only through the skin, not bone. Jex had the sinking feeling that the demon was just toying with him. A lash of her tail thrust him up against a large tree, then stinging pain in both his forearms told him that he was pinned to the tree through the two bones of his forearms. The tail wrapped his legs around the tree and he was totally trapped.

He opened his eyes through the blood flowing down from his forehead and saw the demon smiling at him.

"I must congratulate you." She said, "I haven't had that much of a challenge in a long time. Now, the terms of my contract with that apeish boar who fancies himself a demon-count state that I must have your spirit intact, which means a clean extraction."

Jex's eyes widened, letting in more stinging blood, as he saw her reach into a pouch and pull out a small hooked blade and a plain glass cork stoppered jar. "Don't worry, sweety, this will only hurt for eternity," the demon crooned. "Now, lets see where to make the cut." She held the jar up to her eye and examined Jex through it.

"Hmmn, that's odd, you don't have a full spirit with you right now," she said, following something out of Jex up into the sky. "But you have a few connections. One," here she looked from Jex to Sepp's body, lying motionless on the ground not far away, "Oh my! How can such a small body hold such a large and strong spirit?! And with so many connections! But he's been damaged. Anyway, he's so good he'd just float right up out of the Abyss unless we made an extra special cage for him." She looked back to Jex, then off into the woods. "And another, hiding somewhere out there, it's pretty good too. And I've only brought one collecting jar. I wonder if I can jam all three of them inside and have Braxorthallit distill them out in his laboratory. Would that fulfill the terms of the contract? Can one jar hold three spirits? Damn! I wish Braxorthallit would deal with contingencies like these in his boring training manuals instead of what to do if a jar cracks. This is getting complicateder and complicateder! Maybe I'll just have you for a snack and go visit Iuz for a spell. What do you think, honey?" She reached a hand out and squeezed Jex's biceps, sizing him up to see how much meat he had on him.

 

Woken by the sounds of battle, Maron again cursed her deep sleeping. She took a quick look around as she thanked Sune for keeping her safe.

Things weren't going good.

She saw the Marilith (so she assumed it to be) pin Jex to the tree, and seize his arm. She leapt forward, her powerful white wings outstretched as she half flew, half bounded across the clearing, and gave a cry of suplication, swinging her glass headed mace as hard as she could.
Just before it struck the demonic torso, it flared with a divine light, then the blessed weapon crashed into the demon's side with a celestial force far beyond that of the avariel priestess alone. The strength spells were still holding for her at least.

The marilith screamed, and recoiled, freeing Jex and sending her jar spinning through the air. Maron didn't know what it was, but if the demon owned it, it was better broken. Her next strike was glass on glass, but before she saw whether or not she'd destroyed it, one of six arms swatted her aside like an eagle beating a swallow, and she crashed into a tree, winded.

Maron groaned as she fought to recover her strength, but the marilith was advancing, the female demon snarling at her, its beautiful face contorted into a rictus of hatred. It seized her by a wing, and lifted her high from the ground. Maron hung limply, her blue tinted wing held in a grip she couldn;t break, and her strength deserting her. The demon leered at her, and raised a sword to cut short her life.

"Amor"
"What did you...?"

It's question was cut short as a light flashed from beneath Maron's tunic, and a wave of energy spread from her holy symbol, knocking the demon away from her and towards the rest of the group. Maron dropped to the ground, and smiled faintly as she drifted off to unconciousness again.

"I did it, Daie."

 

Blackness. Nothing.

THE BRILLIANT WHITE LIGHT OF THE SUN!

Something woke Sepp up. Something was different. He could see, but he couldn't see, with his second sight, the one he used to see how a rock was put together or how deep a wound went. It was the same with his hearing, sound waves reached his ears, but only his eardrum vibrating told him he'd heard anything, he couldn't hear the way he used to. Something was very wrong with him.

After the moments it took him to get used to this new, lesser way of experiencing the world, he realized that something was very wrong in the real world too. A huge ugly thing was writhing on the ground not far from him. Jex was trying to get himself unstuck, but was having problems, both of his forearms being pinned to a tree with swords. Jex's scimitars lay useless on the ground below him.

The ugly thing with six arms and a snake lower half was trying to get up, but white flashes of energy coursed around it, continually knocking it back to the ground.

Sepp rushed over and picked up one of Jex's scimitars. Before the ugly thing could get up again, he bounded to it, raising the scimitar high above his head and swinging down with all his might. The blade connected with the creature where its head met its shoulders, and severed them clean apart.

The head fell with a surprised look to the ground, and the body slumped down, letting four wicked looking blades clatter against eachother as it did so. White energy flashed from the creature, through Jex's scimitar, and into Sepp. He braced for the shock, but it didn't hurt. It felt invigorating. He could feel it swirl around in his head, trying to repair the damage the hornets had done to his brain. He closed his eyes and let the energy flow through him. But when he opened his eyes again, he could still only see with them, not really see.

He saw Nakia come out of the forest, her crossbow loaded and ready. "Nakia, help me. I've been blinded."

 

Atten sat up but his head was still throbbing from what he now figured was the attack from the mind-flayer. He looked around and saw that once again he had not been much use in this battle.

Maybe not in battle, but there must be something he could do to help his companions recover.

He reached out and felt some strange disturbances in the living force around him.

He tried to decide who to tend to first. Maron seemed to be the most unconscious so he went over to her first. He looked in his pouch and cursed the fact that he seemed to have run out of the herbs he needed. He wondered if he could draw enough of the living force to help her without the herbs. He closed his eyes and drew on the power of the trees around him and focused them on Maron's head. He felt her state change from unconsciousness to just restful sleep. Her body would do the rest from here.

 

With the battle over, Delphinae reluctantly allowed Delinos to help her up (though her lip twitched involuntarily at the contact). "Thanks," she mumbled insincerely, and then walked back to the woods to retrieve her bow and quiver.

When she returned to the bruised and battered group, she had very little to say. "They are gone now; I am at your disposal, Sepp. It seems you were busy while I was gone."

[ November 29, 2005, 21:55: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

Sepp heard someone talking to him, but didn't know who it was until he turned and saw it was Del. It was so different, this world taken in with only ones physical senses, and no other little things that would let him know instantly that it was Del talking to him, and that she was tired, but triumphant. With a sudden insight, he realized that this must be how most people experienced the world. He hoped that he wouldn't have to get used to it.

"That's good to hear. Gesed will be glad that the Fellowship of the Serpent is no more. Thank you, Del. Yes, we've been somewhat occupied just trying to stay alive."

He saw Kelvados and Delinos helping Jex get unpinned from the tree. He went over to see what he could do about the large puncture wounds through Jex's forearms, but, as he feared it would be, all he could feel when he put his hands on Jex's wounds was blood and flesh. Those blades probably cut or even severed some important nerves and tendons in Jex's arms, but he had no way of knowing now. Well, at least he still knew how to bandage a wound to stop the blood flow. This he did. "Sorry I can't do any more Jex. I feel like that mind flayer knocked part of my brain out of me. I wish it would be as easy to fix as finding a knocked out tooth and helping it grow back in place, but I don't see any gray matter of mine on the grass here. You must of used the sharpening stone on your scimitars. It felt like it didn't take any strength at all to cut that demon's head off."

 

Nakia ran over to Sepp. "Blinded but how. I saw you kill the demon. Oh!" Nakia stops and concentrates on Sepp using the link established when he saved Jex. "You mean blinded to your earth link."

She studies Sepp carefully. "I'm no wise-woman but I know when I have trouble with my abilities I... well I guess, I meditate. I tune out everything and go back to a time when everything was right. Sometimes it takes awhile but it works for me. Maybe you could try that. Go back to a time when you had the link."

She looks hopefully at Sepp.

 

Sepp looked back at Nakia. Somehow, he knew it had been her even without his full senses.

"Yes, that's a good way to put it. Blinded to my earth-link. That's a good idea too, I'll have to try it when things are a little less chaotic for us all."

He looked around the glade they had gathered in. It looked pretty bad. Two dead demons. Blood everywhere, and over there behind that tree...

"Alexi!" Sepp shouted, suddenly remembering the horror that he'd somehow not thought about. He rushed over to the prince's body. His torso was a mess, and there was an excruiating grimace of pain frozen on his face. Sepp knelt down and took Alexi's hands in his. "You died for me. That demon was going to eat me. I wish there was somehow I could repay you." He looked up at his companions, many of whom had gathered around. "There's nothing we can do for him now, is there?" Sepp asked.

Delinos and Atten both shook their heads, Maron was still resting. "Well, at least we can give him a proper burial. Ma said that his father was buried where we first met Atten. That's not too far from here. A couple days or so, certainly under a week's journey. His body should keep in the cold until then. I think it would be fitting for him to lie next to his father, don't you all?"

 

Jex felt abused. He had lost the fight, but had been bailed out by his friends. He lay on his back, his arms burned with pain and his skin was sticky with blood. He was breathing heavily. Enacting the magic of his amulet, it would take a few days to regenerate the wounds he had suffered. Especially in his arms.

He stood he felt awkward and clumsy, but he was alive. "Yes, Sepp I have used the stone, but remember my blades are blessed against demons. Mariliths count as demons."

Kneeling next to Maron he smiled. "Please wake up, I have to thank you. Infact if it wasn't innappropiate, I could kiss you about now."


Turning back to the others, he had a grave look on his face. "The demons mentioned a few names Drizzt, Braxorthallit, and Iuz. Especially Braxorthallit though. Do any of you know these names. I'd like to meet some of them and repay them for what happened here."

"But thats after we send off Alexi, and finish up here."