Heroes
Your party stands in the ruined temple where Al’Tir is held prisoner. With his heart and soul bound to their respective vessels, the deep gnome can be freed from the Shadow Plane. His ethereal chains begin to react as you approach him. You break the glass and two streaks of energy escape toward his body. One greyish energy, seeped with violet, crashes into the gnome, as the other crimson-red force follows it, coursing through his figure – the black smoke wisps that bound him for decades now slowly dissolve into the stale air of the plane.
He looks toward you all with earnest, and then his demeanor grows more serious. “I am afraid, we are not quite finished here folks.” He turns away from the party, looking past the rubble of the dais and columns that once made up the monument. Beyond the collapsed back wall, a cliff overlooks a vast chasm of empty blacks and muted outlines. In mostly silence, only ringing in your ears, an enormous claw grips the edge. You can see a reptilian hand with five razor sharp talons dig into the rock. A second claw finds a holding, and rising from the darkness: a foul figure emerges. Pushing up and taking a moment of flight, it lands on two heinously large goat legs. Standing to a height of what you can only guess to be 9 feet tall, this entity towers over the fallen slabs of the temple’s exterior. A dark red torso, flayed so the sinew of its muscle and tissue is exposed. The demon looks upon Al’Tir and your party as you finally see its face. Two jagged horns protrude from the top of its skull, extruding the tissue above the forehead. A set of obsidian eyes fall under its scowled brow. It opens its mouth to display a set of hideous teeth, contained in between four tusks, both a pair on the top and the bottom row.
The fiendish creature speaks, “Al’Tir… one of my more prized possessions. I sense you have severed our bond. Return to my siphon at once.” And Al’Tir speaks up, “My power is not yours to have, Aec’Letec. You have no domain over me anymore.” The beast snarls and makes a powerful snatch in the air. Few grey and black strands appear to be sucked into his grasp, but they quickly disappear. The demon, Aec’Letec, notices the broken vessels. It leers into you as your heart beat and your body echo within itself. Disturbed, “You have damned them, gnome. And yourself. I will take more from you than you have ever known.” The demon lunges toward Al’Tir.
At’Tir reacts in an instant, clapping his hands together and nine copies of the gnome phase out of his body. Brawndo, the dwarf cleric, begins an incantation to bless the party. Yakob, the human barbarian, shouts with fury, grips his magic greatsword and begins to charge. And finally, Valrus, the prodigal tiefling sorcerer, takes his staff from an affixed position on his back. With runes etching into the wood’s grain, beginning from his two clasped hands, the fire-red ruby atop the staff flickers and ignites. Before Aec’Letec makes it to Al’Tir, the demon is struck in his chest with a concentrated fireball. The impact knocks him back several feet, but does not deter his approach. He comes at Al’Tir’s many illusions with a fury of swipes, missing the real gnome, but leaving only two remaining duplicates.
The gnome, unsheathes a scimitar and dons his Mirror-Eye Shield. With the demon recovering from his flurry, Al’Tir deftly slashes an “X” on its left quadricep. Recovering completely and ready to attack, the demon is blinded by a flash of holy light from Brawndo that causes the demon to step back on his good leg. Right then, Yakob comes in with a heavy slash of his greatsword, flanking the weakened leg of the beast. With seconds in between, another grandeur of fire comes through from Valrus. Several meteors, emblazoned with the full power of a red dragon disciple, crash into the monstrosity. Nine of these make small craters in Aec’Letec’s form, as a tenth and eleventh meteor flies into the ribcage through to the other side.
The beast yells as he ascends into the air several feet. The gust of his take off, knocking prone the two front liners. He calls down a barrage of lightning, although its power is dark in nature. As a bolt travels through Al’Tir, dispatching his remaining illusions, it chains to Yakob and to Brawndo and then to Valrus. The four of them are struck, with two left on the ground, save for Al’Tir and Valrus who manage to pick themselves up after receiving the damage. Valrus immediately launches an empowered fireball at Aec’Letec who drops his altitude, dodging the spell as it explodes in the background.
Still afloat, Aec’Letec out stretches his arms and channels more black lightning from his surroundings, raising him higher into the air. And the demon brings his hands together, focusing the beam of necrotic thunder into Al’Tir, but the gnome manages to bring his shield up just in time. The energy connects, pushing back on the gnome, and the shield is forced upward. The powerful blast ricochets, frantically looking for another point of impact. It bounces rapidly, striking through Valrus, then off the ground, then off the wall, then through a pillar, through Aec’Letec himself, off another wall, through more rubble, and finally reaches back to Al’Tir where it stops. The party finds themselves nearly out of energy, as several of the heroes lay motionless on the ground.
Aec’Letec lands and faintly pants to catch his breath. He arches back and spreads his wings. He cracks his neck to one side as if to notion, he is not done yet. He chuckles. When suddenly, a pair of incorporeal figures whiz by your back line. You look up to see two small, stocky builds rushing the demon. One dragging a greatsword along the ground, wielding it with both hands, leaving a trail of sparks. Left shoulder down. Charging. He reaches the demon’s position and with a bellowing yell, upper cuts the demon with a slash from feet to chin leaving an incendiary gash upon its chest. As the demon is struck, he glares down at the figure. A dwarf. One he has seen before. Arlo Stoneblade stands in front of the very demon that took his life nearly a century ago. And as the reality of the situation begins to unfold for Aec’Letec, from behind the demon: a mid-air Durlag, with a dagger raised high above his head, lands on the beast’s back simultaneously implanting Soulcatcher between wings and shoulder blades. A cry resonates in the chamber as the demon screeches at an incredible painful frequency. His body starts to contort and fold within itself. Powerful white light starts to shoot out of the wound one ray at a time, then more, and then more. This blinding light takes over the area as your party is consumed by the radiance. The light dissipates and you regain your vision. The three of them are all gone.
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