Брюс Корделл - Oath of Nerull

At the liquid’s first touch on her tongue, confidence coursed through her limbs and renewed strength pulsed in her hands. The sensation of power exceeded anything she could have imagined! She noticed that even Loku’s Bracers pulsed with white light, in tune to her heartbeat. Somehow, the bracers were enhancing the effect of the elixir, and vice versa.

She slowly stood, and said, “Let’s begin again.”

Sosfane obliged.

Aganon was faster than Hennet. A blast of jagged light issued from the tip of his wand, searing toward Hennet with electrical fingers. Hennet held forth the Golden Wand. Its yellow glow intensified. With a clap like thunder, the golden light absorbed Aganon’s electrical bolt. The wand sizzled and sparked in Hennet’s hand, filled to capacity with its meal—tiny jolts of electricity discharged, stinging the sorcerer’s hand. Hennet was thrilled.

He bore the pain from the sparks with a smile. After all, without his trophy, Aganon’s first bolt might have simply killed him. Hennet could feel the force of the lightning bolt trapped within his wand. It raged like a caged beast, straining to break free.

Hennet mentally grasped that energy, molding and shaping it. This was not something he could normally do, he knew, but a power granted by the wand. When it was ready seconds later, he flicked it back at Aganon. This time, a golden beam of energy flowed between the two mages. Aganon tried to dodge, but a splash of golden fire enveloped him. He cried out in pain. Smoke rose from his clothing and his skin was charred, but he stood.

Hennet said, “Yield, or I’ll burn you to a cinder!”

Brek looked wildly around for the abyssal child. Had it fled? He couldn’t find it. Then his eyes fell on Nebin’s body. When his attention was focused on the monk, the creature had decided to indulge its hunger on Nebin’s defenseless form. Brek could easily see the slug’s trail of slime on the floor. It pulled itself upright over Nebin and prepared to douse him with its digestive slime.

That’s when Brek Gorunn threw himself bodily on the fiend, screaming, “Back to the Abyss with you, demon!”

The weight of the dwarf’s body slammed the slug down and immediately dislodged it from the gnome. Brek grappled the rubbery flesh that burned his skin wherever they touched. The pair rolled away from the gnome, over and over. The creature screamed and spat its acid, but not a drop touched Nebin.

Brek Gorunn had saved Nebin’s life. The dwarf took consolation in that knowledge as he rolled the demon farther from the gnome, as its acid burned away one of his hands, leaving a smoldering stump of liquid agony. With the one hand that remained to him, Brek strangled the horrid life from the demon’s retching, shrieking, child’s face—a life for a life, he grimaced.

Let Moradin be merciful when we meet.

Like all disciples of Sosfane, Aganon was accustomed to pain, but the blast from the Golden Wand hurt! He brought up his wand once more with shaking hands, then thought better of it. Up to that point he’d imagined the Golden Wand to be little more than a trinket. The realization that it was an item of real power unnerved him and left him badly hurt in the bargain.

He looked to Sosfane—she hammered Ember to the floor with an incredible aerial kick. It was only a matter of time before Sosfane crushed the Enabled Hand monk. If he ran from the conflict, Sosfane would find him and he would pay for his cowardice. That thought decided him; death here would be easier to endure.

Again Aganon discharged his wand. Searing lightning struck at Hennet. The sorcerer stood unflinching, as a mountain’s summit weathers an electrical storm. This time, however, Hennet swung his wand like a club. When the wand struck Aganon’s sizzling bolt, it reversed and streaked back at its caster.

This isn’t fair, Aganon thought as the electricity tore into him.

His teeth sparked and his eyes burst. Through the pain, a vision of a skeletal hand appeared in his mind, reaching for him. He would have screamed, but the Reaper had his soul.

Ember launched herself from the ground at Sosfane, eschewing the time it would take to stand. Sosfane blocked the kick and Ember landed on her feet. The cultist thrust one hand forward attempting to clamp it around Ember’s neck, but Ember ducked.

Charged with the combination of the elixir and Loku’s Bracers, Ember launched four variations on standard kicks. She solidly struck her foe with bitro cha gee, the twisting kick, then again with naeryo cha gee, the downward kick. She had found a weakness in Sosfane’s technique: too much reliance on the hand and fist, and too little on the foot!

“I have your measure, now. You won’t knock me down again, Sosfane,” promised Ember.

“We’ll see.”

Sosfane leaped into the air, out of Ember’s reach, once more using the dreaded vertical stance.

She hovered, studying Ember, and said, “Now, it ends.”

Sosfane prepared to descend on her foe like a falling star. Ember remembered the first kick and wondered whether she really could take another.

She braced for Sosfane’s overwhelming kick, but it didn’t come.

Sosfane floated, a dark angel surveying the carnage of the chamber, and screamed, “Where did you run to, rabbit!?”

Have her eyes failed her? wondered Ember. Then a memory flashed into her mind—Hennet during the final Duel Arcane had bested Aganon with a newly awakened spell of invisibility. She darted a glance over to Hennet. There was the sorcerer, standing over the smoking body of Aganon. He was looking at Sosfane, but met Ember’s gaze for a heartbeat. He winked.

Ember knew the fight was hers. Hennet had turned her invisible.

Fuming and without a target, Sosfane alighted on the stone floor. Ember crept closer as Sosfane searched the chamber. The silver-haired fiend gasped aloud when she saw Aganon’s smoking corpse.

Sosfane screamed at Hennet, “You should have fled with the rest. That error will cost you, as it has your companions.”

Slowly she advanced on Hennet, still on guard lest the sorcerer cast some spell her way. Ember followed behind, unseen and unnoticed. She knew she could not allow Sosfane to reach the sorcerer—at close quarters, he would be helpless against her martial skill. And Hennet looked drained. Using the Golden Wand required a supreme effort of will. She saw him fumble for his crossbow. Sosfane continued advancing, taunting him.

“Soon, you’ll keep Aganon company, a servant to usher Aganon into the deathless realm of Nerull.”

Sosfane broke into a charge. Hennet got off a single bolt—it went wide—before the evil monk was upon him. He backed up and raised an arm. It was only luck that Sosfane’s first kick broke his arm and not his neck. The sound of the crunching bone brought Ember’s heart to her mouth.

Silently, she positioned herself behind Sosfane. Channeling all the remaining power from the magical potion into her hand, she struck a single blow. The strength of the potion and the desperate straits of herself and her friends combined and fueled her strength beyond any force she had known, and maybe ever would again. The sound of her open hand striking Sosfane’s spine was thunderous. The black-hearted, rotten core at the center of the Order’s disruption snapped backward soundlessly.

Sosfane was received directly into the kingdom of her evil god.

With Sosfane’s passing, the shadow of her influence departed the temple. Where the shadow fled, those forced to take the Oath of Nerull were suddenly freed. They were left blinking and confused, as if suddenly wakened from an evil dream. In the city above, the vestige of Sosfane’s influence melted like ice in the sun. Those who were only lightly touched, such as Elder Kairoth and some few others, suddenly walked easier, as if some burden, carried so long it was forgotten, was suddenly set aside.