The fireball had had the desired effect, sowing confusion among the cloaked figures conducting the ceremony. Calleslyn had, at least for the moment, saved the intended victim from her fate, but that hardly meant that the danger was over. As she had said to Dolrim just moments before, there were too many of them, and it was likely that at least some were capable of fighting back. Valmor certainly would be, and it was unlikely he was alone.
She had had no choice but to attack when she did, but she and Dolrim were heavily outnumbered. She just had to hope that the sudden explosion and magical assault had evened up the odds a little.
"I'm going to try and protect her," she told the dwarf. After all, the conspirators were surely still desperate to complete their ritual, and that would mean taking their sacrifice back. The woman was a nun, helpless against them at the best of times. Even if she tried running, the building was surrounded by a ring of undead, and that wouldn't end well. So Calleslyn had to do something.
Dolrim grunted assent, already standing and hefting his axe. If anyone had the presence of mind to notice where the attack had come from, they would be heading up here towards the balcony. Calleslyn hoped he could deal with them as they emerged from the magical mist she had created, and that now flooded the lower half of the room.
Casting a levitation spell, she vaulted over the balustrade around the balcony, and floated gently down through the mist towards the floor, several feet below. It was as grey and disorienting down here as she had hoped, but she had already locked in her mind the direction to the centre of the room, where the sacrifice and her tormentor would hopefully still be. She ran towards that spot, unable to see anyone else through the gloom, as handicapped by that as they would be. Hopefully it at least meant they couldn't all rush her at once, which would make things a little more even.
The nun was huddled on the floor, eyes wide in blind terror, letting out a little scream and curling into a defensive ball as Calleslyn approached.
"Are you all right?" the elf asked. There was no response. "I'm the one saving you," she said, as quietly as she could, not wanting to give her location away to anyone else still in the room. "Stay near me, and you might be safe. Don't try and run, or I can't protect you."
She reached over to the figure lying on the floor nearby; the man in the clerical robes she had struck with the first spell. His eyes were open, staring up sightlessly in the direction of the ceiling. He was dead; the spell had killed him with a single stroke. Good shooting. She looked around, and saw a bulky figure looming out of the mist.
"You!" shouted a familiar, deep, voice, "bloody adventurers! You just don't know what's good for you!" It was Valmor, hair in disarray, blood oozing from a gash on his forehead, black cloak and rich robes smeared in dust from the rubble. "Get back to the cesspit dungeons where you belong!"
He raised his hands and a beam of brilliant reddish-white light spat towards her. Her own hands were already in a defensive posture, the counter-spell partially completed, but not quite sufficient. Blazing heat enveloped her body, making her cry out in pain as she fell to the marble floor. Valmor might not have her combat experience, but she knew he was a capable magician. Perhaps her only advantage was that he apparently did not want to use his most powerful magic, for fear of accidentally killing the nun alongside her... she was somebody he presumably still needed alive.
"Let me teach you your bloody place!" he shouted, face full of fury as he raised his hands a second time, towards Calleslyn's sprawled body.
Valmor might be concerned not to use his most deadly magic for fear of hitting others. But she was facing the other way, and had no such compunction. Gritting her teeth against the pain of the burns he had inflicted, she hurled a blast of blue-white lightning towards him, It hurled him off his feet, catapulting him back into the mist and out of her sight.
She listened carefully, looking about to see if anyone else was coming. There was a scrabbling sound from Valmor's direction, a grunt of angered pain, and then footsteps, staggering, moving away. The spell hadn't finished him off... she didn't necessarily want him dead, but she certainly didn't want him conscious. On the other hand, there was no sign that anyone else was approaching. Perhaps the others had all fled?
She cursed inwardly. She couldn't let him get away, and use his undoubted influence to make it look like he was the victim.
"Protect her!" she shouted up towards Dolrim "I've got to stop him.," she added, to the cowering nun, but still receiving no answer.
She clambered to her feet, wincing at the pain. It was starting to fade now, and not as bad as she had at first feared. But it certainly hadn't gone, and she could only hope that Valmor was in a worse shape than she was.
She ran into the mist, hoping to find him.
──◊──
The undead were swarming around the Temple of Pardror. If they had taken the paladins by surprise, the holy warriors were now re-grouping, fighting back against the horde of ghouls, zombies, and who knew what else besieging their holy site.
It seemed counter-intuitive at first. Why attack the place best able to fight off undead? But, as Vardala watched, she realised that there was a kind of logic in it. By attacking them first, it meant that the paladins had no chance to get organised in defence of the rest of the city. Nor could they use their normal ability to drive away unnatural creatures with the power of their holy icons, for that would just force them into the city, giving them free reign to attack the innocent. Instead, the paladins were having to hack through them one at a time, and they were clearly outnumbered, and unprepared.
In fact, there were not, it was becoming clear, all that many paladins in the city. It was, after all, hardly a common calling. Many of those defending the temple were priests, for the most part lightly armed, although a few had magic. The fight was certainly not going all their own way -- even as she watched, one cleric disappeared beneath a pack of ghouls, dragged down as he exhausted his spells. If they had known the assault was coming, they could have prepared better... but that, surely, was the point.
Vardala was beginning to doubt her choice of action, wondering if she should have stayed with the others, stopped the ceremony at its source. Was the necromancer controlling all this in the Rotunda somewhere? Presumably, and taking him out might have been the best course, after all, just as Calleslyn had said. But it was too late to second guess that now. She had come here to protect Horvan, and that was what she was going to do.
It did not take much to slip into the Temple of Felanda, the goddess of healing. The monsters were not attacking that yet, and, in any event, the temple had no guards -- it never did, for that would not have fitted with its ethos. Nonetheless, she drew her shortsword, keeping it ready as she half ran through the corridors, seeking the way to the living quarters where Horvan should be sheltering.
Unfortunately, she did not really know the layout of the temple, never having had any real need for it. When she needed healing, Lady Tarissa was always there, and, in any event, Felanda's strength was more in healing the illnesses of everyday folk than the wounds of adventurers. Perhaps she should head towards the centre of the building -- there might at least be someone there she could ask.
A few passages later, and she found herself in a large open space, filled with beds and pallets. Priests and priestesses were bustling about, in a state of frenzied desperation, evidently trying to get some of the most seriously ill people to safety. It looked as if many of them had already left, but those that remained had the hardest jobs. What presumably wasn't clear to them was that, if their temple was under threat, so was the whole of the city. There might not be anywhere safer to move the patients to.
She looked about for someone to talk to, but all the white-robed figures were ignoring her, intent on their own duties. Then she saw him, and her heart leapt; he was safe!
"Horvan!" she called out, running towards him, as he struggled to heft one end of a makeshift stretcher.
"Vardala! What are you doing here?"
"I've come to get you. Come on, we've got to get out. The outskirts of the city might be safe."
"Right..." he said, fear and confusion showing on his face, "we've got to get everyone to safety."
"What? No... we've got to go now!"
"You're not going to leave these people?" he looked shocked by the suggestion, and she was ashamed to realise that it hadn't really occurred to her.
"I... I..." she stammered, lost for words, looking about at the people around her. The priests and priestesses, defenceless all, were risking themselves to get people to safety. It was clear they would not abandon anyone, regardless of what it meant for themselves. And the patients looked desperate, helpless, some of them weak or crippled, unable to escape by themselves, allowing slow-paced healing magic to do its work, not the more instant laying on of hands that she had experienced. Battle wounds, it seemed, were easier to heal than sickness; she had never really thought about that, either.
Horvan was looking at her with desperate eyes, and so, it was becoming clear, was the priest holding the other end of the stretcher. They wanted her help, and she realised, with a sinking feeling, that she had to provide it. Besides, hadn't she thought, just a moment before, that there might not be anywhere safer than this?
"Yes... yes, of course," she said, "but we need a secure location. We can't just evacuate the temple, the things are everywhere. We need to find a safe sanctuary, here, where we can wait it out. The others have that side of things in hand... I think. Where would be the best place?"
"There's a windowless chamber that way," offered the priest, nodding his head towards a door on the far side of the room, "we use it for meditation. It has light from the ceiling, but only one entrance."
