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18. Jurassic Palace


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#1 Guest_Oryx_*

Posted 30 January 2003 - 06:54 AM

18. Jurassic Palace

14 FLAMERULE 0000
THE UNDERSEA PALACE

Jaheira, tailed by two rangers, two crusaders, and two thieves, ran down a crystal-and-marble corridor of the undersea palace, looking for any signs of her their lost leader, inspecting every hallway.

“Hurry up, everyone! Can’t you rangers run faster?” she shouted over her shoulder to the others as she ran. “Look through the windows and the ocean into the other passageways, we might see something! Keep your eyes peeled for hidden traps or doors, especially you, Arra! Don’t you know anything more about this place, Bucki? We’ve got to find a way down to where they took him!”

A knot of acrid pain formed in the half-elf’s stomach, but she forced herself to run onwards, as the bitterness spread to her mind. Will none that I love be safe? First, they took my family. Then, they took my grove. Then, they took Gorion. Then, they took Khalid. Now, they’re trying to take Onyx. Well, this time, I won’t let them. I WON’T LET THEM!

**********

Onyx came to, and found himself shackled to a metallic table. He was not in chains, only neat little half-circle cuffs that wrapped around his wrists, ankles, waist, and neck, all attached to the table, pinning him there.

“Ah, I see the child of Bhaal has awoken.”

Onyx rolled his eyes. “Very funny. Irenicus did that line much better. Your accent isn’t creepy at all.”

“Ah…as you like,” the voice chuckled with perceptible chagrin. “As I’m sure you can guess, I am the Jeweler.”

“Your fashion sense is terrible as well,” the cavalier said, looking down at the tight, shiny silver suit he had been dressed in by his captor. He managed to twist his head slightly, and out of the corner of his eye he could see a man of average height with freckles and sandy hair stroking a cat. “A game of cat and mouse, eh?” the paladin asked.

“Precisely,” the Jeweler chuckled. “You’re sounding like your friend, Jarek Bond. But pray that you’ll fare better than he did!”

The Jeweler snapped his fingers, and a small beholder floated into Onyx’s field of vision. It began staring at the bottom of the table, and then its main eye lit up and a concentrated beam of light shot out of the pupil and fired onto the metal table, between Onyx’s feet, starting to disintegrate the metal surface. As the beam burned a hole in the end of the table, the beholder began angling its eye up and the beam began cutting the table upwards, between and parallel to Onyx’s legs and headed straight for his groin.

“Do you expect me to talk?” the paladin asked calmly.

The Jeweler chuckled. “No, Sir Onyx, I expect you to die!” With that he ran laughing from the room.

Onyx began to chant a priest spell at the beholder, but without interrupting its main eye's beam gaze, one of the stalk eyes looked straight at the human and zapped forth a spell which instantly ceased the stream of syllables from his mouth. The cavalier moved his lips in a curse, but of course no sound came out at that either.

The frost-giant-strong warrior then gritted his teeth and tried to bust himself out of the metal restraints with brute force, but they would not give, and did not even betray the awful sounds of straining metal, even though the man could have easily torn himself out of the shackles almost any of Faerun's dungeons had to offer.

If I don’t get out of this trap soon , Onyx thought as the beam drew closer to his crotch, I’ll have one very disappointed lover!

Just moments before this fear came true, the captured cavalier heard a twang sound behind him and an arrow whizzed over his head and stuck the tiny beholder right in its main eye. The floating beast shut the eye, immediately ceasing the beam, and opened its fang-lined mouth to let out a piercing shriek, into which another projectile then flew, the arrowhead then popping out the back of the beholder and causing black blood to spurt from the creature's mouth. Onyx craned his head back to find his savior, and saw two booted feet land on his table, then they leapt up again and the cavalier watched, impressed, as a man clad like him in shiny silver leather leapt into the air holding a longsword, and cleaved the little beholder cleanly in half in midair before landing on the floor at the foot of the table.

Black blood and beholder-brains flew everywhere as the beholder's halves flew apart like a busted piñata, streaking across Onyx's face. When he opened his eyes, he could see Jarek Bond standing at the foot of the table, wiping off the longsword on the foot of the table and then sticking it over his back alongside other blades and a shortbow, and smiling smugly.

"Good day, Sir Onyx," the swashbuckler nodded calmly, as if this were an ordinary day (which it somewhat was, for both of them), "If you're not too tied up at the moment," he quipped while the cavalier silently groaned at the pun, "Perhaps you'd care to join me?"

Onyx mouthed the sentence, "If you can quit wisecracking and actually unshackle me," but no sound came out.

"Damsels in distress are usually speechless when I rescue them," Jarek arched an eyebrow, "But you, Sir Onyx? Very interesting." The cavalier did an exaggerated eye-roll at the swashbuckler to convey his (low) opinion of the joke. "Allow me," Jarek continued and reached under the table, and pulled some sort of lever which made a loud click. The metal bands restraining Onyx immediately swiveled back into the table and the freed paladin wasted no time in rolling sideway and off that accursed table, landing in a kneel on the floor and standing up again while brushing some beholder gore off himself.

"Thanks, Jarek," Onyx pleasantly surprised himself by saying out loud. "So what's the score?"

"Two-nothing, Jeweler's favor, I'm afraid," Jarek played off the idiom. "I've been his...guest...for a few days now, as you must have suspected, but as you can see managed to free myself – though I should thank Bucki Ryder – that’s the lady assassin your friend Valygar would’ve reported last seeing me with in Nashkel. I acquired this bow, the arrows, and some longswords from a patrol of skeletons I managed to take out, but for the most part I've been keeping to the dark corners of this confounded undersea palace and avoiding fights. Golems and more powerful undead are numerous, and though I think I found where the Jeweler stashed my gear - and yours, I'd wager - I've not yet dared to fight or try to sneak past the vigilant, vampiric guards of that chamber."

"Perhaps I can help you there," Onyx nodded approvingly, and Jarek pulled two longswords off his back and handed them to him. The cavalier copied Jarek's innovation of plunging them through-and-back-through the back of his silver leather suit to create makeshift but suitably secure and safe sheaths.

“Odd taste in clothing, the Jeweler has for his guests,” Jarek smiled, admiring the outrageously shiny silver suits they both had been dressed in during their capture.

“Tell me about it,” Onyx nodded, “What is it about evil and poor taste that go together?”

“Now you’re getting the swing of it,” Jarek laughed at the quip. "The rest of your friends here?"

"Yes, although the Helmite split off and we've been joined by a Lathanderian cleric and paladin," Onyx informed.

"That wouldn't be darling Dawn and her kid sis, busty Buffy, would it?" Jarek arched an eyebrow and grinned.

"Yep, that's them," Onyx nodded back, "You seem to know a lot of the Harpers' agents, 007."

"Just the ladies," the swashbuckler grinned absentmindedly as he turned toward the door of the chamber. "It'll be good to see Arra again, it's a pity I always end up leaving her company so abruptly." Onyx rolled his eyes as the two walked toward the door. "Now, once we leave this chamber, try to be as quiet you can - which, being a paladin, I'm guessing isn't very - enemies will be about and listening, and I doubt even you, my lionlike friend, want to take them all head-on with our tasteless leather outfits and mundane weaponry. Do you have a means of hiding?"

"I'll cast a sanctuary spell," Onyx nodded.

"Good. I'll keep to the shadows. Just follow me, and once we get to the doorway to the room with our gear, I'll give you a signal and we'll have to fight the last few guards, two vampires who'll see me and perhaps you, I'm afraid."

Onyx nodded. "Once we get there, let me cast a few spells on us before we engage them."

"Very good, I didn't particularly feel like making a blood donation today. Cast them quietly, as this marble palace echoes like a plagiarizing bard. Shall we?"

Onyx cast sanctuary over himself and Jarek opened the door. The two proceeded down a hallway. It was made of greenish marble, and the walls were almost entirely of perfectly clear crystal, through which he could see the ocean. Other hallways and chambers were visible through the water; the palace looked almost like a giant coral structure; with hallways snaking through the water between otherwise free-floating chambers; rather than being one solid building with the rooms flush against each other and sharing walls. The marble-and-crystal halls and chambers were all extremely clean, extremely quiet, and extremely cold.

The pair continued around several turns and up and down a few stairways, past a number of lesser types of ambling undead; spectral, skeletal, and cadaverous alike, as well as some marching golem sentries, careful to stay out of their paths.

At last, after going down a stairway that nearly plunged into the ocean floor, the pair came to a single, long hallway that ran along just above the coral growing out of the sand floor below. It shot out away from the other snaking passages of the palace, and was even quieter and colder.

Onyx could just make out what seemed like an end to the hallway ahead; a doorless archway leading into some sort of larger room which he could vaguely make out the exterior shape of by looking through the water surrounding the wall; and he thought he saw the glint of gold within it. Jarek gave the signal, even though the cavalier could see no vampires yet. Onyx inferred Jarek must have carefully appraised the correct distance for inaudible spellcasting. He concentrated, and immediately very faint blue globes appeared and disappeared around him and Jarek as he protected them from the impending evil. The cavalier then blessed them both, imbued himself with holy might and armor of faith, and last but not least, a negative energy ward.

Onyx gave Jarek a nod and then the swashbuckler immediately broke into a run, and the cavalier followed closely, both knowing they'd have to dispatch their vampiric foes before their defenses wore off. Jarek pulled the shortbow off his back and notched an arrow midstride, and Onyx drew his longswords and began mentally preparing another spell.

Just as the two came within a dozen yards of the gateway, horrific shrieks could be heard from just on the other side and two vampire women popped through. Both men immediately planted their feet, and Jarek let his arrow loose at one, while Onyx cast a holy smite over the area between them and their foes. The nimble Jarek had already loosed a second arrow at the other when the evil-banishing energy of the spell flowed down over the hallway, and the vampires both screamed as it ate at their undead bodies and arrows flew through their hearts. Still the monsters clambered on, reaching out with their dirty claws toward the heroes, and Jarek tossed down his short bow just in time to unsheath another pair of longswords and join Onyx in a four-sword whirlwind blizzard against the vampires. Segments of claw and arm went flying against the glass walls as the swordsmen cut into the monsters, and with nearly synchronized slashes each cut off the head of a vampire with one of his sword and then impaled it through the heart with his other.

“Well, that was a pleasant warm-up,” Jarek chuckled as the vampiric bodies disintegrated and their mists floated back down the hallway. Onyx scowled at the gaseous forms, hoping to later find and stake their hosts.

“Was that the vampire couple that rules the undead here?” the cavalier asked.

Jarek laughed haughtily. “Not a chance! They are far more powerful, and one is a male. Yes, I have seen them from afar, but not dared to go close. No, these were merely two of their lackeys, and not better ones at that. But luckily for us, they were the only ones guarding our stuff.” With that, Jarek strode into the small room at the end of the hall. He and Onyx began to rifle through the treasure chests, and soon found two bags of holding.

“Platemail. This one’s yours,” the swashbuckler remarked as he peeked into one, then tossed it to the cavalier.

“Leather. This one’s yours,” the cavalier remarked as he peeked into the other, then tossed it to the swashbuckler.

“Everything’s still here, I’m impressed,” Jarek smiled as he peered into his bag. “The Jeweler is quite a kind host, isn’t he?”

“Don’t get me started,” Onyx scoffed as he opened his bag. “Yep, everything in mine is still – oh no.”

“What’s missing?” Jarek looked concerned.

Onyx gulped. “The Burning Earth.”

***********

“Blue dragonscales, eh?” Jarek smirked as he watched Onyx draw out and don his shiny blue suit of armor. “Makes your foes a bit less shocking, I hear?”

Onyx rolled his eyes, “Not shocking at all. Between this and my natural abilities, I’m immune. Ah, armor of shadows, I should have guessed,” he watched the thief draw out a nearly-black suit of leather and slip it on.

“Yes, and if I do say so myself, it’s quite stylish – when I wish to be seen at all.” Jarek also drew a few potions of invisibility from his bag and strapped them in various places to his suit. “Ah, a dragon helm!”

“Immunity to fire,” Onyx nodded as he clamped the helm down and then slipped on a bright red ring.

“Wouldn’t want the Jeweler running the burn on us, would we?” Jarek punned and Onyx sighed. The swashbuckler drew out a headband with a black ioun stone set in it and tied it just under his hair. “Not the favorite look, but occasionally I have to be practical,” he smirked. “Ah, I see you’ve had boots of speed and the north forged together for you?”

“Nearly immune to cold, with my helm and myself,” Onyx nodded as he put on the boots.

“Very good. I had the same done with boots of grounding,” Jarek smiled as he pulled out another specially forged pair and put them on. “An internal barrier girdle? Very nice. Cuts those magic missiles down to size.”

“With myself and this amulet,” Onyx added as he slipped a necklace under his armor, “and a spell; or even just my sword, I can cut out the rest. Of course, my fiancé has a single cloak that provides immunity; all the best defensive equipment for her,” the paladin smiled absentmindedly.

“Ah, such singular commitment,” the swashbuckler smirked. “How sweet.”

The cavalier glared at him with mixed disapproval and amusement. “Something tells me you wouldn’t know, Jarek Bond.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that I’ve not yet found Miss Perfect…only Miss Tethyrian, Miss Amnish, Miss Cormyrian, Miss Baldurian, Miss Kozakuran, Miss Shou-Lungese, Miss Calimshani, Miss Chultish, Miss Maztican, Miss Avariel, Miss Drow, Miss Nymph, Miss Tiefling, Miss…”

“Alright, alright! I get the idea!” Onyx groaned. “Can’t a man put on his belt in peace?”

“I guess unlike myself, you don’t need one for strength?” Jarek smiled as he clamped a strength girdle around his waist.

“Nope,” Onyx smiled. “I’m a giant; and Torm can make me a titan.” The cavalier threw on a non-detection cloak.

“Very subtle choice for a paladin,” Jarek laughed as he slipped on and fastened tight to his back an identical cape. “Last time I saw you, it was more aesthetically oriented nymph’s cloak.”

“I think we’re beyond negotiation at this point, don’t you?” Onyx winked as Jarek tucked an amulet under his leather.

“Quite,” Jarek nodded as he slipped on a ring of regeneration and watched Onyx slip on an improved invisibility ring to match the one he’d just donned. Over his rings the cavalier slipped on a set of handwear that caused Jarek to arch an eyebrow. “Bracers or gauntlets?”

“Both,” the cavalier smiled, “Had a quick-talking imp fuse blessed bracers onto gauntlets of extraordinary weapon specialization.” He waved his hands around in an unarmed combat technique unbecoming of a paladin.

“Offense and defense, I like. But stylistically, they look a little garish,” Jarek smiled.

“Say that when they resurrect you later on,” Onyx winked while Jarek slipped on some blinding strike bracers.

“Perhaps instead you’d better hope that a rogue can figure out how to work such an item,” Jarek winked back and attached his bag of holding to his waist. He pulled out a tuigan short bow, strapped in onto his back, then filled the quiver next to it with arrows, drew out a number of daggers and placed them along his forearms and thighs, and lastly pulled out a pair of beautifully crafted Kozakuran katanas and sheathed them in an “X” over his back.

“You look like my sister, thief,” Onyx winked as he strapped his own bag to his belt, and began to draw out and sheath weapons on his armor. The Azuredge throwing axe he sheathed in a quickly grabble manner over his right shoulder, the silvery Axe of the Unyielding and the five-headed Flail of Ages he strapped at either hip, the pair of longswords Daystar and Angurvadal he sheathed along his thighs, the longsword Dragonslayer and bastard sword Foebane he sheathed in a diagonal cross on his back, and between them along his spine he sheathed the two-handed Carsomyr.

“You look like a true tin can, paladin,” Jarek winked back. “Shall we?”

Onyx nodded. “Let’s go.”

After very quickly loading the other contents of the treasure room back into their bags of holding, the two fully armed heroes ran at boot-hastened pace out of the ransacked room and back down the hallway.

“Where the hell are we going? Onyx asked Jarek.

“Straight to the Jeweler,” Jarek explained, “Unless you feel like dropping by on some more vampires.”

“Not any more than I have to,” Onyx chuckled.

“Best be quiet and activate our invisibility rings then. Stay close to me,” Jarek explained. He and Onyx twisted the rings on their left hands in unison and disappeared from sight. They ran along the crystal-and-marble halls of the undersea palace, past unwitting patrols of golems and vampires who could not detect them. They gradually would their way to the other end of the palace, though still on the bottom floor, and the sandy ocean floor stretched ever out before them through the crystal.

At last they came to the large window-walled chamber where Jarek had formerly dined with the Jeweler. “Protect us from evil, Torm,” Onyx whispered simply as he and the swashbuckler ran into the large room.

“So good of you to join us, heroes!” came a thinly pleasant villain’s laugh, and the large chair behind the long table swiveled around to reveal the sandy-haired, freckled Jeweler sitting in it. With a flick of his wrist he dispelled the invisibility of the two heroes. The chair next to it spun around, revealing itself to be occupied by a blonde man in a black fighting suit, the Saint. Across the table, Jarek and Onyx stopped in their tracks.

“I’m so glad we could all come together,” the Jeweler chuckled, gesturing to the three around him. “We have Jarek Bond, the legendary Harper agent who has foiled so many of my little schemes over the years, but how long can this aging thief’s luck last? We have Sir Onyx, a divinely-tainted knight who has made quite a name for himself over the past year, but will daddy’s shadow always be the sole source of his fame and fortune? We have Cyran, better know as the Saint, an unparalleled saint of the sword and a true leader of the Cyricist flock, who is my now my illustrious business partner. For I am the Jeweler, I deal in the rarest artifacts, mostly a collector of sorts, and it is I who engineered the slave trade from the beginning.”

“And that’s just where it begins,” the spiky-blonde Saint spoke darkly as he stood up, two katana handles sticking up over his shoulderblades, “But for you, this is where it ends.”

“I want my sword back, Jeweler,” Onyx scowled at the sandy-haired Jeweler. “It’s mine.

“Ah,” the Jeweler smiled, and stood up out of his chair, revealing a pair of longswords sheathed on either side of his waist. The handle of one Onyx recognized as the Burning Earth, the other looked quite similar but was electric white-yellow in color, instead of fiery orange-red. The man set his cat down and placed his hands on the hilts lovingly. “I’m afraid it was mine first.”

“You stole it at some point, big deal,” Onyx shrugged.

“No, no, dear paladin,” the Jeweler grinned, stretching his round freckly face into an angled mask, and his voice grew deeper as he spoke, “I made it.” The man gripped two swords, and drew them out. The Burning Earth now had a red pommel gem where Onyx had earlier noticed one might go, and his mind’s eye flashed back to the terrible vision of the great reptilian beast of the ancient world that the Burning Earth itself had once showed him, the sword its claw, glowing bright with leaping flame, as it did now again. In the Jeweler’s other hand, which also seemed much too weak and small to an unwieldy, ancient weapon, the other sword crackled with leaping electricity, and it had a bright yellow pommel gem in its hilt. “Yes,” the Jeweler smiled as he watched Onyx’s eyes widen, “You know.”

The cavalier saw the huge, terrible, scaly creature in his mind again, standing twice as tall as the two barbarians that it slashed down, laughing terribly.

The Jeweler spoke.

“In the beginning, the world was without form.”

Onyx saw again his vision of the utter void, cold and complete darkness.

“When it took shape, it was a burning place. It was the burning earth.”

Onyx saw again his vision of the barren, burning rocks, magma everywhere and life nowhere.

“And the air overhead sizzled and crackled with lightning; it was the searing sky.”

Onyx saw again in his vision the air of the burning landscape filled with thunder.

“Then there was life. And the world was hot and wet and bright, and it grew.”

Onyx saw again his vision of the landscape now covered in the foliage of dense jungles.

“And life began to stir, and grew larger and greater and more complex.”

Onyx now saw animals among the plants, scaly things scurrying about, growing larger and fiercer.

“And then, emerged the king of the species.”

Onyx now saw one great animal among them, a large, winged, scaly creature that looked like a huge, winged reptile; like both a dragon and a demon, and somehow different still.

“And so it should have stayed. But then a fluke, an accident happened.”

Onyx saw again his vision of the great orb from space crashing into Toril, sending clouds of dust and ice across the surface, flooding the world and blanketing it in cold and winter.

“Now you understand, human,” the Jeweler smiled, “You were a fluke, an accident, a mistake. Your race was never meant to be. Our kind had a destiny. We ruled the world, and were meant to forever more. We were great, magnificent, and immortal. We were the dragemosaurs. But then the blazer came down from the sky, and destroyed us! And allowed you pathetic monkey-men an ill-earned chance. The cold and the mammals drove us away. Some of us, the larger ones, began to hibernate, hoping to wake again one day, millennia in the future. And these evolved into the race of Dragons, huge beasts that slumber for eons in their lairs. And among others of us sprang mutants with the abilities to find or make doors to travel the planes. And these evolved into the race of Demons, and fleed the terrible cold of the Prime. Our descendants live, but we are gone. All save one. Me. My family was the last. My mate and our eggs were killed, stolen and eaten by you furry fiends. I swore revenge upon your simian interlopers, and so I crafted The Burning Earth,” the Jeweler held up the gem-augmented fiery sword, “And the Searing Sky,” the Jeweler held up the electric sword. “The world began in fire and lightning, and so shall it end. I am the Jeweler, but my true form is Tyranodon, and I am the last dragemosaur.”

“Whatever the hell you are,” Onyx bellowed as he reached his hands up to his shoulders and drew out Peridan, the dragon-slayer, in his right hand, and Foebane, the demon-smiter, in his left. “You’re going extinct.”

“NEVER, WEAK HUMAN,” the Jeweler growled in a reverberating and inhumanly deep voice, and he began to shapeshift, and grow larger and scalier, and became the beast from Onyx’s vision. The beast stood, on two legs but stooping forward, about twice the height of a man. Its flesh was covered in an armor of large, green, chitinous scales, the claws of its front and back limbs long, red, and swordlike, the front ones clutching the two massive and ancient longswords, whose auras of flame and electricity made their blades even larger. The beast’s body was not unlike that of a thin-bodied dragon standing mostly erect on its hind legs, and it did have two green leathery wings sprouting from its back. It had the twisted, horrifically grinned face of a demon though, with a crown of cruel horns upon its forehead, and other horns sprouting from its back, knees, shoulders, and tail. Its snout was quite long, like a dragon’s, but wider; easily large and powerful enough to swallow a man whole with one snap, or bite him in half with one chomp. Its great toothy jaw smiled daggers down at the knight and the rogue.

“Humans are not weak,” the cavalier stared up defiantly at the beast.

Tyranodon began to laugh a deep, murderous laugh, echoing all about the chamber. Onyx stood his ground, but Jarek was at once overcome with a sudden panic, and began to spin around and bolt for the door.

“Courage, friend!” Onyx bellowed, his voice echoing like a god’s, “You shall have no fear!” At these words, Jarek’s fear was gone at quickly as it had come, and he spun round again and faced the enormous creature and the kensai standing beside it.

“Enough theatrics,” Cyran, still standing next to the monster, hissed from under the spiky blonde hair spilling over his headband. “Let’s waste these fools. KAAAIIIIIII!!!!!!!!”

Before Onyx even had a chance to blink, the kensai had drawn the katanas on his back and leapt high into the air, straight over the table, making an arc for Jarek, shouting his strange battle-cry. The swashbuckler’s reflexes were just as fast, and he’d already yanked his shortbow and an arrow off his back with each hand. He drew and fired the arrow as Cyran flew over the table, then let the shortbow fall onto a belt-hook and reached back for the katanas over his own shoulders. With lightning reflexes, Cyran swung his katanas forward, slicing the arrow in three pieces in midair just before it plunged into his chest, and continuing with the forward sweeps clanged against Jarek’s blades just as he hit the ground.

The kensai and the swashbuckler glanced up from their crossed swords as Tyranodon drew a deep intake of breath. Onyx looked up and saw the dragemosaur holding his swords aloft, and they began to grow even more brightly that ever before. Suddenly a great billow of fire came from the Burning Earth and a great cloud of lightning from the Searing Sky, and struck the center of the table. While Tyranodon continued laughing, Jarek and Cyran immediately parted and both leapt for the edge of the room, narrowly dodging the elemental blasts. As if a red dragon and a blue one had breathed upon the very same spot in unison, great clouds of fire and electricity exploded from the middle of the table, enveloping Onyx while Cyran and Jarek nimbly dashed away. The great beast bellowed in laughter as he watched the terrible storm consume the cavalier across the table from him.

“DIEEEE, KNIIIIIIGHT,” he bellowed, chuckling to himself and holding his two great swords aloft while flames and lightning leapt about. His laughter was cut short when the untouched form of a blue-and-silver armored warrior brandishing two swords of his own leapt out of the cloud of energy straight for him, seeming to have passed straight through the storm without a care. Onyx jumped up onto the table and now leapt off the other side at his foe, the fire and electricity flashing harmlessly about him as he sailed through the air headlong at the beast, Dragonslayer and Foebane pointed forward. Tyranodon growled with fury at his adversary’s passage through the elemental maelstrom, but was not caught off guard, and met the incoming blades with slashing parries from his ancient longswords. So great were his blows that the cavalier was knocked backwards out of the air, and crashed back into the table, shattering the marble and then hopping to his feet again as the beast strode forward.

Tyranodon spun and his great spiked tail came swinging at the cavalier, who leapt over it as it smashed more of the table to rubble, and then ducked under a buffet from its wings, which scraped across what remained of the tabletop and sent the placesettings and the Jeweler’s cat flying across the chamber.

“OHHH….MR. BIGGLESWORTH GO BYE-BYE,” Tyronodon growled with a hint of regret as he watched the feline sail through the air. It landed on its feet (of course), and wisely scurried away (chasing an undead mouse).

“Eight left, Mr. Bigglesworth,” Jarek Bond could be heard quipping above the fray.

“Torm, grant me might!” Onyx shouted and raised his swords aloft, and was for one instant consumed in a pillar of white light. As Tyranodon swung his swords down at the spectacle, the cavalier appeared again, swinging back fearlessly. The knight’s swords smashed against the dragemosaur’s, and the beast stumbled back at the unprecedented strength behind his opponent’s blows.

Beyond the end of the table, outside the fading cloud of fire and lightning, Jarek and Cyran had reengaged as soon as they had escaped the common danger, and danced around each other. Four katanas flashed bright as showy, deadly blows were exchanged at high speeds.

Cyran brought each katana in from the side in fast horizontal sweeps which undoubtedly had the power to cut his opponent in half. The quick-minded swashbuckler saw this, and could have feigned back out of reach or used both his blades to parry them, but his aching wounds told him that he had to end this, for he was at his end. He dropped only his off weapon to his waist to counter, turning it sideways, and with his main weapon continued to slash high and forward. He turned his left wrist, aligning the katana horizontally in front of his waist, the pommel of its hilt pointing towards Cyran’s incoming main hand katana, the tip of its blade pointing towards Cyran’s incoming off hand katana.

The swashbuckler’s finesse was perfect, and both of the kensai’s weapons clanged off the top and bottom of the swashbuckler’s left-hand curved sword with two metallic rings in unison. Less than half a second later, Jarek’s right-hand katana, uninhibited, sailed straight into Cyran’s head. The enchanted steel sliced cleanly into the left side of his face, running all the way from the left corner of his mouth, up through his cheek and eye and forehead, slicing quickly through the front of his skull and teeth into his jaw and forebrain like a surgeon’s scalpel. The hilt of the katana smashed into his jawbone, and he went stumbling back, screaming in horrible pain with a bloody gash now running down the left side of his face. He dropped his katanas to grab his mutilated face in agony, and shortly dropped to the floor himself, clutching his face as he spasmed and bled; and then he lay quite still.

The air filled with horrible clanging every time the swords of Onyx and Tyranodon met, flames or sparks leaping from the beast’s weapons but hurting neither of them. With a quick spin of its entire massive body, Tyranodon brought his wings swinging forward at the cavalier, who stabbed for them with his swords but nonetheless was buffeted forcefully into the air, landing on the marble floor across the chamber. The beast took to the air with its wings, flying over the cavalier and then dropping back to the floor to crush the human beneath its great hind limbs. Onyx rolled aside just in time, and sprang up as the beast came down, using their combined motion to stab with force and speed into the side of the beast as it crashed to the floor, causing great cracks to radiate across the marble. Blackish beast-blood sprayed from the wounds with such force that as Onyx withdrew Dragonslayer and Foebane, he was nearly knocked back.

The beast gave a horrible roar and stabbed at him with the Burning Earth while swinging for his head with the Searing Sky. Onyx sidestepped the stab, ducked the swing, but before he could move elsewhere, the dragemosaur had reared back with both swords to its shoulders and come forward again, each swinging in great diagonal arcs toward the cavalier, from both outside and above, prepared to meet in an “X” of slashes right where he stood. They were coming from the sides, so Onyx could not evade left or right, but they were coming down from above to the floor; he could not duck them. The creature lunged forward as it swung, and the paladin knew he could not jog backwards any faster; nor could he come forward straight at the creature’s kicking, spearing hind claws and horned knees.

The only way out was up. He sprang out of his crouch with blinding speed, using the superhuman strength that filled his legs and back to shoot up like a compressed spring, leaping high into the air, high for the most acrobatic of monks, much an armored knight. As he soared up, he pulled his swords back behind his shoulders, and as he came up face to face with the house-high beast, its head sprang forward like a snake and its mouth opened wide to bite, but the knight swung his two swords forward in great horizontal sweeps from both sides. Dragonslayer and Foebane cleaved into the dragemosaur’s neck, shearing it front to back, meeting at its spine and completely beheading it.

Tyranodon’s final roar dissolved into a vomiting of dark blood, which ceased to come from its mouth as the head fell away, and instead spurted from its great, cleanly cleaved neck. The head fell to the floor, looking as hideous as ever and still staring up at its slayer, and the decapitated body let go of its swords, which fell with ominous, heavy clangs; and then the great body stumbled backwards and fell, crushing its own wings under itself and further cracking the marble floor, shaking the entire chamber as it landed.

Onyx himself landed on his feet, breathing heavily, clutching his bloody swords, and looked down at the severed head of the beast. He started as its eyes opened again and peered up at him. A chortling laugh came from within its great, toothy mouth.

“CONGRATULATIONS, HUMAN….” it bellowed, even without lungs, “PERHAPS…YOU ARE NOT SO WEAK AFTER ALL. THE TEST OF TIME HAS PROVED ME WRONG. MY KIND WAS…UNFIT…AND SO WE GO. AND YOU FLOURISH, AND REIGN…THE KING OF SPECIES.”

“So be it,” Onyx proclaimed, staring down at the head of his slain foe, “Man shall triumph over the greatest monster.”

“NO…..” the beast’s head growled, “MAN IS THE GREATEST MONSTER….HO HO HO HO HO HO….” With that, the head sputtered, the tongue rolled limply out of the toothy mouth, the eyes closed, and then it ceased to move. Tyranodon, the last dragemosaur, was dead.

“Mission accomplished, my good man,” Jarek chuckled, looking at the still body of the kensai that lay across in a puddle of its life-blood across the room.

“Let us hope,” Onyx nodded tiredly, and stepped over the body of Tyranodon. Using Dragonslayer and Foebane, he began to shear away the hard, chitinous scales of the beast, carving away a single large swath of its scaly hide.

“He’ll make quite a suit of armor, eh?” Jarek smiled. “Pity it’d prove heavy for my tastes, or I’d take some myself….perhaps the teeth and claws though; they’ll make excellent daggers and shortswords.”

“Help youself. Speaking of which,” Onyx spoke thoughtfully as he cut off his enormous chunk of hide, rolled it up, and stuck it in his bag of holding, “It’s time I reclaimed my sword…and one more for my troubles.”

Sheathing Dragonslayer and Foebane over his shoulders again, Onyx picked up the Burning Earth, and then walked around the skinned body to pick up the Searing Sky. The swords felt even heavier and more ill-balanced than before, augmented by their reset pommel gems with some strange power that seemed to have weight and magnetism, though whether it was physical, magical, or psychological was difficult to tell. The cavalier felt both compelled to drop the heavy burdens, but also quite reluctant to do so.

He squeezed the oversized handle of the Burning Earth, while Jarek looked on in confusion. “Everything chipper, knighty?” he asked with detached concern.

“The Burning Earth” Onyx muttered, “It allowed me to see the archaic past….”

“And the Searing Sky…” Jarek asked, with an expectant air.

“…will I see the future?” Onyx wondered. “Tyranodon said the world began and would end in fire and electricity…if the Burning Earth and the Searing Sky were forged of the flame and lightning that the began the world…”

“…shall they be unforged into the elements that will be at its end?” Jarek finished. “Find out, dear cavalier.”

Onyx closed his eyes and squeezed the hilt of the Searing Sky. Jarek watched as the sword began to glow blue, yellow, and white, like electricity caged within crystal.

Onyx opened his eyes and saw an ordinary cityscape: commoners, nobles, and adventurers going about; mostly humans. With a start, he recognized where he was: the slums of Athkatla, and it was as he usually saw it. Both wealth and poverty, loving and fighting, smiling and frowning.

He blinked, and the city changed. The slums were no longer slums; there were fewer adventurers; and it was hard to distinguish nobles and commoners, indeed, he saw very little poverty and squalor, and in fact almost everyone looked like a noble. There were pedestrians walking without fear or pickpockets, merchants vending without fear of lifters, street-conjurers entertaining without fear of magic-police. He noticed also that almost every face was smiling, and if engaging a fellow citizen, whether in business or pleasure, had a look of comraderie, and that these looks came from creatures of many races. Elves and dwarves greeted one another as they went by, or even went hand in hand, as did halflings and gnomes, humans and orcs, avariel and drow, aasimar and tieflings. He saw in front of himself, in the center of the square, a boy with features both orcish and halfling, waving about a newspaper. As everyone else, he took no notice of Onyx, and brandished a newspaper right in his face. The cavalier saw the headline as it went by, “V-K DAY: MEZOBERRANZAN AND NEW MYTH DRANNOR SIGN PACT; KOZAKURA SURRENDERS TO UNITED STATES Of MAZTICA; TORIL WAR TWO ENDS!”

He blinked, and the city changed. The buildings were sleeker and stronger than before, looking not like the wood-walled and thatched-roofs he was accustomed too; rather there was much more use of metal and glass, and some sort of very gray, smooth, featureless stone. He noticed that a street magician was trying unsuccessfully to conjure a trick, and a passerby trudged up to him and spoke with a grave face. More pedestrians than before walked about, but their looks were also crossed with worry, and they looked up at the sky with trepidation. He noticed also fewer manners of character than before: there were more humans, but less of all else. The paperboy turned around, but now he was a shortish human, and the wind blew a paper from his grasp. As it drifted through the air into the face of a fast-walking man wearing a silk blue suit, an extremely thin red kerchief, and holding a thin rectangular case, Onyx read the headline, “DEAD MAGIC ZONE EPIDEMIC SPREADS – NEW TODAY: SOUTH HALF OF ATHKATLA; DELRYN, DISTRICT OF CORDELL, U.S.M.; TEN-CITIES OF REPUBLIC OF ICEWIND DALE.”

He blinked, and now almost every pedestrian he saw was human, and walked quickly about his or her business with neither frown nor smile. There were no street magicians, no one seemed to carry any item with an enchanted glow, and the architecture grew even sleeker and more sterile, as did clothing. He noticed one scraggly man standing in the square, with a placard hung about him that read: “YOUR DIETY IS DEAD!” The paper changed direction in the wind, and sailed by his face, and he read it again, “OFFICIAL: WEAVE UNWOVEN, MYSTRA DEAD; ALSO HELM, CHAUNTEA, TALOS. ”

He blinked again, and now everything was smooth and clean and artificial, and all that he saw were humans, and no signs of any mage or priest. The newspaper landed upon the ground at his feet, and it now read: “DWARVES AND DRAGONS DECLARED EXTINCT, JOIN ELVES, ORCS, OTHERS.”

He blinked again, and the paper burned to ashes before his eyes. He looked up, and now there was no one to be seen, but bones littered the street, which like the buildings was all blackened and burnt out; shattered glass, crushed quasi-stone, and twisted metal lay about. He looked up at the darkened sky, and he saw two gigantic and faroff birdlike creatures above, but they were made of metal. They flew quickly about one another, in some sort of dogfight, shooting colored beams of light at one another. One found its mark, and the other exploded.

He blinked again, and he could see no more ruins, nor anything manmade at all, but only scattered, scrubby desert plants. The sun was up, but the sky had some permanent, scorched shadow about it.

He blinked again, and the plants were gone, and now from faroff he saw mountains, nay, volcanoes, for lava spewed from them, and flowed down their sides, and ash was spat forth, and covered the sky, which was thundering.

He blinked again, and the lava was everywhere and ignited, and the sky utterly dark and filled with terrible thunder. Flame leapt all about his feet, and lightning crashed all about his head.

He blinked again, and there was darkness.




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