Send a spelling or grammar correction to: Tracy Johnson
This site sponsored by Agenda Games LLC
Back to Empire on the HPe3000
... and ...
This is a first draft of a story set in the world of Greyhawk.
It is based on a home campaign so some of the people, places and things
may be different. Any helpful comments or suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks
Jason Zavoda
Telenstil didn't answer, but instead drew out a black chain from
which dangled a handful of amber stones.
"I've never even seen that spell before." murmured Talberth
to himself.
For a moment the camp was quiet, then the wall of fire gave
a huff and disappeared. It broke the silence and set the wolves to
howling.
"Stand back!" yelled Telenstil. His voice was loud and filled
with command, but it lacked the eldritch quality that had rung out
as he'd cast his spell of power. With a twist of his hand he snapped
the largest of the amber stones from the chain and hurled it
toward the giants.
Fire blossomed, rising in a twisting pillar. Arms and legs
formed, and a grinning head. The fire-creature had a wicked face.
Eyes black as coal, fangs and claws glowing white hot and hair
like molten steel. It gave a shriek like steam escaping from a kettle
and tore into the giants around it.
"Away, away." cried Telenstil.
"Fire Elemental." Ivo glanced at the elf. "Dangerous."
"It will not attack me, but the rest of you stand clear!"
ordered Telenstil.
The giants fought, but stone went through the creature and
did little harm. Hands smashed at it, but the flame-flesh burned
the mere oerthly hide of the giants. Clubs and daggers fared better,
but they struck nothing solid, only parted the substance of the
elemental's body which reformed itself as the wood or metal passed
through.
Claws of fire left blazing cuts and slashes. Just the nearness
of the creature set beards, hair and clothes ablaze. The elemental
twisted, danced and laughed, its voice a shrieking, evil wail.
But not all the giants faced the elemental. Some were near
to Telenstil and the others. Some near the far edge of the camp by
the path. And the wolves set upon prey that did not burn. They
had no liking for fire. The elemental was a deadly beast, but
only a distraction for the giants, it would not hold them long.
Ivo slipped a tiny bottle from a wooden case. A small tube, only
a sliver of glass, was at the center of the bottle, surrounded by a
dirty, yellow liquid. Inside the tube was a pinch of dark powder.
Thrown hard by the old gnome, the glass shattered on the
ground amid the wolves. Smoke, grey-yellow and dense, billowed from the
spot.
"Friend." the dwarf Nyradir said, but he looked toward the
fight and not at Harold.
The halfing could hear the concern in the dwarf's voice.
"Friend, Galar!" Nyradir cried out in alarm.
Harold looked to see what the dwarf saw. Fire rose up
among the giants. The elf Ghibelline stabbed one of the monsters
while Gytha smashed it across the knee with her iron staff.
A stream of motion was Derue. He glided between two giants,
swaying back from the club strike of one and ducking beneath a sweeping
blow of another.
Talberth sent a flight of blue-glowing magic bolts into a wolf
that charged him, and a cloud of sickly vapors swallowed the rest of the
pack. But what had so alarmed the dwarf, Harold could not see.
* * *
(To Be Continued...)