Undecitina 16, 1000 PC

Post date: May 06, 2010 2:19:13 AM

Stupid! Dumb! Imbecilic!

Never step through a door like that.  I am so lucky I had the upper hand.  That could have been really, really bad...

After leaving the dining room, I found myself standing in a large, circular, book-lined chamber between a spiral staircase and a bloody altar fitted with manacles within an engraved circle.  Fortunately, the demonic brutes that were expecting someone to appear were not paying attention and I managed to disintegrate one before they could react.  The other leapt in an attempt to capture me, but only after enough hesitation at the sudden, shocking loss of his comrade that I managed to step into the engraved circle and erect myself a magic circle for protection.  I polymorphed the other into a toad after it tried to assault me through my ward.

Waiting for the affects of the thunder that sounded every time I cast a significant spell (everything except the magic circle up until this point) to subside, I listened and heard chanting drifting up the stairwell from below.  It sounded frantic, so whoever it was was aware that something was amiss.  I risked leaving the wards and crept to the stairs to determine what the chanting was about.  It sounded like a summoning incantation, calling something particularly vile, so I took flight and made myself invisible before floating down to see.

A Genesian necromancer (not Gresham, fortunately) surrounded by a considerable contingent of undead was chanting and glancing periodically toward the stairwell expecting an intruder.  I floated so I was between the ceiling and the top of the bookshelves that surrounded this chamber.  By my estimation, I could drop a fireball in the center of the room and avoid damaging the books and consume wizard and all the undead.  I placed the fireball perfectly and the undead burst into flaming ashes, but the wizard was untouched.  He glared at me as I became visible, but continued the ritual undeterred.

A terrifyingly large glabrezu was beginning to take shape within the pentacle and it was obvious the circle would not hold it when the demon was fully summoned as it was cracked in several places.  Had I done that?  The wizard needed to be stopped but a phantasmal killer failed to thwart him and seeing this tried a solipsism, which he also resisted. He smiled both because I new my illusions and enchantments had no power over him and that his summoning was nearly complete.  He had a nice smile and I thought that would be a good way for him to spend eternity, so I smiled seductively back to get him to continue.  Seeing that he was not completely immune to my charms and continued to smile at me, I cast flesh to stone.  I caught him just the way I liked in solid stone.  Unfortunately, he was concentrating on me now because the glabrezu was now fully in our world.  Disoriented, the demon looked around giving me just enough time to cast a holding spell on it.  I did not hold much hope for that working, but miraculously, it did.  I flew down to the circle and mended it, recovered by magic circle and cast it to enclose the demon.

To my shocked surprise, I recognized the glabrezu as an extremely angry Darzagon, the demon Luanes' father had banished from Troll's Bridge five months before we traveled back in time.  How long have we been gone?  I should have been years before he was able to escape.  Knowing I had very little time left, I assayed Darzagon's demonic resistance to magic as he struggled against my opportune holding spell and began the spell to bind him.  If it worked, my companions and I would have a year to figure out how to get rid of him forever.  For one terrifying minute I chanted, wrote and arranged components as the holding spell began to weaken.

As I finished the short ritual, the holding spell failed, but the ancient preparations of the pentacle and circle allowed my magic circle to keep the demon at bay just long enough for the binding to have a chance to take effect.  Suddenly, the embossed circle flared and pentacle grew chains, which inexorably wrapped themselves around Darzagon.

I thought the thunder was loud...until Darzagon roared.