Jus launched himself at the elven lines, smashing home with hell hound flames blasting before him. The huge man crashed into elves, scattering them, and the mob surged forward through the breech to drag drow to the ground.
The high priestess gathered thirty desperate followers and made a counter attack. Raising her hand, the priestess began to scream out the syllables of a spell. Jus heard the spell, turned, and caught the priestess’eye as she gasped in an instant need to kill.
Jus looked at the woman and gave one low, predatory growl.
Screaming in hate, the priestess launched a spell. A lightning bolt blasted toward the Justicar. The man swung out with his sword, striking the bolt aside and ploughing it into the drow. Dark elves were blasted from their feet while others ducked, magically immune.
The mob hesitated, fearing to come too close to Lolth. Taking the fight to the enemy, Jus hurtled himself at the high priestess, who drew out a long staff that trailed writhing tentacles. With a manic scream, the woman ran headlong through the corpses, wild with the need to tear open the Justicar’sheart.
Naked and bloodstained, Escalla flung herself at the enemy faerie, who stood beside the bone gateway. Masked in white, it had a clear stone on a ragged string hung about its neck-the slowglass gem! The masked faeriespared a glance at Lolth, who kept feeding, building up the power that could crush the intruders and seize the Nightshade key. The faerie whirled, saw Escalla’s rush, and shot out a magic shield to hold off the inevitable blast ofspells.
Screaming in fury, Escalla blurred forward with accelerated speed and ploughed through the shield, crashing full tilt into her enemy’schest. The white-clad faerie flew backward, slamming against the temple gates and tumbling into the pitch-black interior. With a wild scream, Escalla sped forward in pursuit, moving almost faster than the eye could see. She shot like a meteor above Jus and the drow, leaving a monster summoning spell sparkling in her wake. A swarm of giant damselflies flashed into existence behind her-creatures that plunged down onto giant black widow spiders, plucked them upinto the air, and began eating the arachnids greedily.
Still moving blindingly fast, Escalla sped through the temple doors. An ice spell blasted at her, ripping the flesh from her bones and smashing her to the floor. As she screeched and writhed, the other faerie whirled down from the ceiling, blasting a fireball down to incinerate Escalla’sremains to ash. Scorched bones hissed, an obscene parody of Escalla’s beauty.The enemy faerie stood over the corpse, then turned back in triumph to glance toward the demon queen.
Leaning against a nearby column, Escalla waved to catch the enemy faerie’s eye.
“Hey, moron!”
An ice blast of Escalla’s own punched through the otherfaerie’s shields. Ripped and torn, the other creature dived aside, a spellflashing to repair wounds before the creature even hit the ground. Escalla walked forward, laughing as the dazed faerie crawled across the floor.
“Simalcra are so hoopy, huh?” Escalla’s opponent had thetypical fault of all court-raised faeries: just not enough experience from the school of hard knocks. “Aw, and I bet that was your best combat spell!”
Whirling in silent rage, the other faerie fired another ice blast. Escalla was blown apart-the pieces falling to the earth, turning tosinging cockroaches and running around and around the floor. A nasty little peal of laughter came from somewhere in the shadows above the door.
Escalla appeared, now masked by magic shields of her own.
“Nope! Guess you had one more!” The naked girl gave a smilefilled with pointy teeth. “Simalcra are just too, too hoopy.”
A lightning bolt thundering off her magic shield, Escalla lunged with the lich staff pointed straight ahead. The enemy faerie threw itself aside, and a chunk of masonry exploded as the staff struck home. Escalla whirled, but her enemy sped deeper into the temple. She threw the staff like a javelin, the weapon missing by a hair as the enemy faerie fled madly away. Swooping to retrieve her weapon, Escalla flew hot on her enemy’s tail.
The other faerie twisted through huge hallways lined with spider sculptures. In a vast room filled with gigantic spider webs, the enemy faerie dived wildly toward a little door. Escalla ripped a spell past her enemy, and a wall of flames blocked the path. With a wild scream, Escalla ploughed toward her foe, holding the staff before her like a spear.
The other faerie blasted out a cloud of choking fog. Escalla shot through, felt a shape whir below her, and lashed out with one hard little foot. A mask cracked as she kicked the enemy faerie in the face, and then suddenly the other creature turned on Escalla like a shark.
Too close for staffs or spells, the two faeries fought blindly, kicking and tearing at each other, but Escalla’s blood-slippery skingave her enemy no chance to grip. They grappled in midair, falling wildly through the fog. Escalla managed to grip the string around her enemy’s neck andrip it free, the slowglass gem falling to the ground.
Nails tried to rip Escalla’s face. She struck madly with herlich staff but missed, and the other faerie punched back. Escalla crashed into a springy surface, saw the other faerie lunging straight toward her with a dagger, and managed to plant both feet in the other creature’s chest. Her enemy tumbledbackward and rebounded from a pillar, slamming face down into the spider web just below Escalla’s heels.
Clouds dissipated. Both faeries hung in the giant spiders’web, stuck fast and buzzing wildly with rage. An instant later, giant black widow spiders emerged from the upper corners of the room. They stared at the prey through unwinking eyes and began to creep relentlessly along the strands of web. Escalla took one look at the spiders and felt her skin begin to crawl.
“Oh crap!”
Pointing one finger, Escalla fired little swarms of golden bees. The spellfire snapped and rebounded off the webs, failing to so much as break a strand. Escalla cursed, swiped clumsily with her lich staff, and blasted one sticky rope of spider web free. The black widows bounced madly on the web, running forward as they felt their prey beginning to escape.
Below Escalla, the other faerie jerked in a frenzy of panic. Escalla was breaking free strand by strand, and the black widows were racing in for the kill. The enemy faerie tore itself free, hanging by a single hand that was stuck tight. Flapping in frenzy, the faerie tried to break free.
Spiders gathered for a death lunge, Escalla broke another strand, and the masked faerie opened fire with a spell. Flesh blasted apart, and suddenly the masked faerie was flying free. Reeling in agony, the creature sped away out of the temple, leaving Escalla staring after it in shock.
The other faerie had deliberately blown off its own hand at the wrist. The severed hand still bounced and clung to the spiders webs. Hacking herself loose, Escalla fired a lightning bolt through the nearest spiders and cleared the web, then used the lich staff to cut the severed hand free. The faerie whirled, then looked down to hunt for the fallen slowglass gem… onlyto see the whole floor of the hall sparkling brightly with mountains of gold and jewels.
It was the temple’s treasure horde!
With a staff in one hand and a severed trophy in the other, Escalla stared. Fifty black widow spiders surged toward her from all sides. The slowglass gem gleamed and sparkled just below her, bracketed by enough treasure to buy a kingdom. Out of time, Escalla could only look about and flap her wings in woe.
“Oooh, shoot!”
Escalla dived, plucked up the slowglass gem, and shoved it in her mouth. With her mouth and hands full, the girl shot faster than a crossbow bolt out of the temple, leaving enraged spiders following fast behind.
Outside the temple, Jus fought beneath a diving umbrella ofdamselflies that struck and swerved at the drow-sometimes dying, sometimeskilling. The drow high priestess screamed in fury and lashed at the Justicar with a rod that sprouted flailing tentacles. The strands struck home in a wild blur, whipping out to bind legs and arms, stinging with acid wherever they touched. Jus jerked in fury pain, trying to wrench himself free. A mace crashed against his shoulders, nearly cracking his spine. Jus kicked out viciously, connected with a kneecap, and brought the drow priestess crashing to the ground. Before he could finish her, he felt a blade rip into him from behind, then another crashed against his armor of dragon scales. The Justicar managed to tear the tentacles free and hurl the weapon aside, when suddenly the whole world exploded in his face. The drow priestess managed to slap a hand against the Justicar, and magic gave a hideous, brilliant flash.
