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Daglan: Part 5 - The Final Battle
Tarmere 15, 12880
We waited for two days for Theo to regain consciousness at the white temple of the angels. Once he came to, he healed up everyone that needed it and I explained the plan that I had come up with. After we hammered out a couple of details and matters that I hadn't accounted for, Theo opened a portal for me to go to Tel Akbar. With one of Sarusar's black stone rings firmly around a finger, I stepped through the gate to the clearing that we have used so often. I'm sure that I owe my continuing good health to the fact that Theo had suggested that I wear one of the black rings because assuredly Daglan would have locked onto me the instant I left the protection of the white temple.
I quickly entered town and found a hotel room. Inside the hotel room I donned the guise of an old dwarven man in robes and exited out my window under the cover of pre-dawn. I quickly made my way to the Temple of Light to ask the blessing of Lord Lathidus at the alter and under the eyes of Father Isan. From there, I traveled to the Arm of Justice to talk to Saul. After making myself known to him, I related Lord Commander Serig's fate to the faithful knight and saw his face grow passive and stoic. Instead of sorrow marring his face, a sort of resolution bordering on pride spread across his visage. It was then that I realized that he was proud of the sacrifice of Serig and yet melancholy when he thought of the Lord Commander's fall to the hands of evil.
After I finished my tale, I inquired about the possibility of assistance from the holy warriors of Lathidus. Saul told me that there were some holy men in the temple and that he would tell them of my inquiries as soon as they came out of their prayer. I got something to eat in the neatly kept tavern across the snow-covered street. I ordered some hot cider and a big plate of flapjacks. By the time I had nearly finished my meal, a page entered the eatery looking for me.
I returned to the temple and Saul introduced me to a prow looking fellow named Lord Malacronan and four of his compatriots. They were on their way to the United Kingdoms with Lord Father Myram, Second in the Light of Lathidus. Though I was well disguised and Saul had not given Malacronan my name, he saw through my guise and hailed me with a look of achievement. I asked him how he knew my name and the holy knight told me that he had asked counsel of Lathidus to find someone that knew of the fate of Lord Commander Serig. It was then that I was hit hard by the realization that I had met this man before. Lord Malacronan had been one of the men with Serig the last time I had seen him alive. Apparently, he was the only survivor.
We sat in counsel for quite some time as I explained the situation with Daglan and the plan to destroy him. Originally, I had hoped for another companion of Malacronan's named Father Justicius to come with us so that we might have a cleric to defend us against Daglan's undead followers, but Justicius had continued on to Hana while we were in discussion. Just as I thought that our party might be in a serious world of hurt, Lord Father Myram entered our private chamber and announced that he would be accompanying us. My prayers to Lathidus had not gone unheard.
It was getting late in the day and I knew that we had better hurry to get to the clearing so that we would make it to Theo's portal. My new friends gathered their belongings and took their blessings and followed me through the streets of Tel Akbar. We made reasonably good time to the clearing and, shortly thereafter, the all-too-familiar plane of space opened in the center of the clearing and we stepped through.
I made introductions between the six men of Lathidus that came with me—Lord Father Myram, Lord Malacronan, Sirs Aeldrae, Brandon Cole, Jared and Miroc—and my friends. We further outlined the plan and then were about to take our rest when Theo made a suggestion. "We should do something about those imprisoned people over in Minothad."
This started a whole line of debate but it was eventually agreed that we would free them…right then and there. So, I grabbed the proper control pyramid and Theo opened a portal directly above the corresponding device in the razed city of Minothad. When I stuck the pyramid through to touch the big pyramid, I felt like someone ripped part of my soul from me. Theo's dimensional folding portal had gone awry…I watched as my fingernails and hair grew to unmanageable lengths, but nonetheless managed to deactivate the soul trap in the charred city.
The scream of surprised demons and tortured souls will probably haunt me to the end of my days, but what we did was right…and would serve to help us later.
Tarmere 16, 12880
A gray dawn broke with Theo transporting the men of Lathidus to the original clearing we had used to test the pyramid—four days east of Lord Kartekast's personal manor. Once there, Father Myram and the others were to set up our pyramid and prepare for the coming storm.
Theo contacted Sarusar and told him we needed a distraction so that we could catch Daglan unaware. Our arcane associate agreed and we gave him thirty minutes to play his part.
At the preordained time, Theo took us to the top of Daglan's tower so that we might finish what we had begun. We had all sniffed the true seeing drug that we had bought from Briliag so that we could see through any illusions that our necromantic foe my have had up. After that, the rest becomes a blur.
As soon as we came out of the portal we scattered to search for Daglan—in Serig's body. In the process, Marcus, Taren, Theo and I took cover in the machicolations of the tower or, in my case, the stairwell. Bolas and Sanjian rose off the tower top since Theo had imbued them with the ability to fly so that they could better search our surroundings.
Marcus spotted Sarusar battling Daglan about 250 feet above us and pointed so that our two prow warriors could engage. Sarusar was surrounded by wraiths and specters but seemed to have all his attention focused on Daglan. Bolas flew straight for Daglan while Sanjian took a wider trek to avoid obvious attention. A trio of undead broke from their formation near Sarusar to engage with Bolas. Looking beyond them, I saw Sarusar wave his arms about and heard Daglan shriek in surprise as he plummeted to the ground. Sanjian made a valiant dive to grab the body before it hit, but could not catch it in time and it was consumed by the horde of land-based undead surrounding the black tower. The corpse was about halfway to the ground that I realized that something was amiss. Daglan was more than a match for Sarusar and it would take more than a few waves of the hand to destroy him. Moments later, Theo confirmed my suspicions through his magical link to Sarusar—he'd been controlled by Daglan from the outset. This was a giant trap to lure us all to him.
We signaled Sanjian on his way down that our real enemy was still in the air; he nodded but retrieved Serig's body first. Theo threw lightening bolts and fireballs at the undead closing in on Bolas. I saw a wraithlike form descent toward me and launched two of my throwing daggers at it. Marcus hacked at it with his magical bastard sword and took two blows in return. I could almost see the life ripped from his body at each touch of the abomination, but he persevered. I came up behind the creature and plunged my daggers into its ethereal form. With a how, it dissipated into nothingness as the creature refused to be bound to this realm any longer.
Moments after we regained our cover, a massive ball of fire erupted in the center of the tower. I dove further down the stairs to avoid the blast and the others found decent cover in the machicolations of the tower. All in all, we remained relatively unscathed.
Sanjian made a beeline for Daglan and was very nearly to him when the necromancer raised his hand; the most terrifyingly beautiful splash of color sprayed forth and hit my dark friend. From the damage he had already sustained and this new hurt, he cried out in a manner I will never forget. A shriek of agony so pure is was obvious that his life had been ripped from his body. His mortal shell plunged earthward and was instantly surrounded by the legions of undead.
I looked up in time to see Bolas crash into Daglan—in Sarusar's body—with his black stone ring clad fist leading his way. As they tumbled through the air, Bolas took hits from Daglan's life-stealing minions and we all knew that he couldn't take much more. The two grappling enemies slammed onto the roof of the tower and Theo immediately began the incantation to dimensionally fold us to the clearing. We struggled for a few seconds against some of our foe's minor minions as we waited for the gate to open. With the familiar flash, the portal opened and we all ran through. I pulled Serig's body through with me so that he might have a true warrior's burial.
Instead of the original plan where we would push Daglan through the portal and onto the activated pyramid, Theo took us to a spot a few feet from the item. Within seconds, the warriors of Lathidus fell on the creature and Lord Father Myram rushed to Bolas' side. The man…er…elf that I know as Bolas was a withered husk of the prow warrior I was used to. I know that feeling all too well. When Daglan initially possessed Radaga, he hit Sanjian and I enough that we could feel ourselves slipping into the realm of the unliving.
Before I continue with the tale of Daglan's demise, allow me to completely describe the surroundings. Around our clearing, a ghostly war was being waged. Thousands of spectral figures battled in a perimeter around us. Some seemed to be holding others out of our space and others just acted as though they were releasing pent up rage. It was when I saw the ethereal figures of children fighting and heard the war cries that I realized that the phantoms of Minothad were fighting for us to hold off the encroaching undead for us.
The warriors of Lathidus made quick work of the prone necromancer. One of his legs was hacked from his body and the rest was pitched at the pyramid in hopes of saving Sarusar's soul.
We were all about to take a collective sigh of relief when a gray mist began to boil out of the disembodied leg. We all watched in horror as eight spidery legs ripped out of the limb and raised it off the ground. A strange glow lit the underneath of the creature's "body" and then we were struck by its two-pronged assault.
The gray fog roiled around us and began to sap years from our lives. At the same time, tendrils lashed out to grab at us to draw us in. Three of the warriors were quickly snared up and things began to grow desperate.
With Bolas and Sanjian both out of action, Marcus and Taren became our two foremost combatants but neither wanted to engage the beast. I tried to think of some way to end the ordeal and lift the weight from our shoulders. Then, I literally struck the load from my back by pulling our unused pyramid from my backpack. With a yell of warning, I activated the device and leapt back. Moments later, the bodies of five warriors of Lathidus and the spider creature slumped to the ground. We quickly retrieved our comrades' bodies and then Taren immolated the soulless spider with a wall of fire.
It was finally over, but not without a heavy cost. Sanjian, Serig and Sarusar dead; five noble warriors of Lathidus imprisoned and Bolas drained nearly to death. All of us, with the exception of Bolas and Myram, were older by decades and none of us felt very good. The matter of Daglan's destruction was not over, but his threat to the realm certainly was. That would be a subject of great debate and theological complication for a good time to come.
Theo rested for a bit and then whisked us to the angelic temple so that we could rest and take advantage of its curative properties. The moment we all stepped through the portal, we were blinded by a warm bright light. I knew immediately what the source was since I had been there to release the angel from its marble prison. In omnipresent voices, both angels spoke to us of the evils that we had help banish and that the world should be grateful. They said that they would return when they were needed and would be found by those who would be chosen by fate as we had been. The female voice told us that we had done well and suffered much and that we should have our desires. The two angelic beings bid us farewell and then the brilliant light was gone.
I suspected that we had been granted wishes as payment for our work on Loche Isle and thought that one would best be used for my friends. I wished that we would all be returned to the condition that we had been in at dawn with the exception of Serig and Sanjian. Their beliefs would not allow them to be revived and I chose to respect that. Bolas was remarkably more like himself and happy as the hells to be done with all the adventure for a bit. Marcus seemed to be back to his jovial self and the rest of us didn't feel nearly so bruised, battered or burnt as we had moments before, but a cloud did hang over our celebration.
A man that had traveled and joked, battled and bled with us had perished. Sanjian was with the party before I came along and, had it not been for his suggestion, I would never have been allowed to accompany Bolas, Connor, Theo and Taren on the adventure that would forever change my life. Along the way, he had introduced me to his trainer, Shohan, who has trained me since and we learned things from each other that none of the others could understand. His passing will always be remembered as will his valiance and honor.
We returned to Tel Akbar, spoke with members of the churches of Lathidus and Arden, Shohan (so that he might deal with Sanjian's body), gathered our families and notified some other dignitaries of the intention to tell the tale in the Bards College. We traveled to Lord Kartekast's manor to tell him that we had destroyed the undead menace that had plagued his realm and we were greeted with a celebration already in progress. Theo helped me tell the tale with his magic and we all had a good time. After the feast wound down, we invited Kartekast to watch the official telling in Tel Akbar and he agreed.
All of our families were gathered for my telling of the Rise and Fall of Daglan as were a great deal of notable officials from the Gulf of Bengyar region. I noticed a few other faces in the crowd and not all of them were familiar to any of us, but I'm sure that all will be made clear in due time. It was one of the greatest accomplishments of our lives and my proudest moment. With the telling of that tale, I took my first step toward a goal I've striven for my entire life.
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