The hellhound’s flaming jaws clamped down on Theryn’s arm, and the monk cast absorb elements in response, channeling some of the hellish flames into his spiritual reserves. The hound shook its head fiercely, attempting to rip Theryn’s arm from its socket as the shadowy tendrils kept the monk rooted in place. The massive hell hound at Varien’s heels snapped its jaws but couldn’t find purchase on the paladin’s plate armour. The paladin ventured across the muddy plain to assist his companion. Inside the lighthouse, which was rapidly filling with smoke from Bob’s fireballs, the magic user painfully got to his feet and turned to face Siegfried, a look of dark hatred crossing his features. His skin began to turn a mottled shade of green, and his frame began to blur, growing in height and girth. There was the slithering sound of vines as his body, which began to resemble a pile of rotting vegetation, brushed the curved roof of the lighthouse above. The creature opened its mouth, and the smell of swamp gas filled the chamber. Alec continued to lurch listlessly towards the Harpy archer, stars in his eyes. When he reached her side, he blinked and shook his head as if coming out of a trance. He fixed the smouldering Harpy with an appraising look. “You know, you aren’t as cute up close,” he said. The Harpy glowered in reply. Bob looked over at Siegfried who nodded at the large plant creature standing before him. “Light him up,” the half-orc said. Bob nodded in reply and cast another fireball . There was a rush of flaming wind as Bob’s spell impacted amid their enemies. The lighthouse swayed as it was rocked by the blast. The plant creature The cleric ducked behind a chair, closed his eyes and prayed as the flames washed over him. Alec cast absorb elements as the blast wave hit him. Yeemik’s unconscious form began to smoke on the floor. Siegfried stood firm as his magical array of items assisted him in resisting the flames. Air-wen shivered as the magical flames licked at him, The Harpy’s luring song turned into a scream of agony as she was blasted by the fireball . Her feathery wings turned to ash as she writhed in pain, and her scorched body landed with a crackling sound on the lighthouse floor. Narn stood resolutely as the flames raged around the lighthouse, setting loose items on fire and causing smoke to billow from its windows, and shook his helmeted head mockingly, an evil grin on his green-skinned face. You fools, Narn said telepathically. You brought fire to a devil fight. “I also brought a spiritual weapon!” Bob shouted in reply as his floating flail smacked the devil upside the head. The devil smirked as his helmed absorbed the damage. “Hold on, sit down, and we’ll get to you in a minute,” Siegfried said dismissively. On the floor, Yeemik grunted and sat up. “What did I miss?” “Necromancer’s a plant, the Harpy’s dead, and the Halfling is an elemental wolf!” Siegfried said. “Thanks for catching me up,” Yeemik said. “When did you start falling asleep on the job?” Siegfried asked. “When I picked up this damned flail!” Yeemik said, indicating the censer-flail of the bloodsworn. “Think it might be cursed?” Siegfried said. “Might be!” Yeemik said. “We’ll get you a new one!” Siegfried replied. Outside, Varien continued to close the distance between him and Theryn. The hell-hound growled behind him and lunged, its jaws closing on the paladin’s leg. Varien could feel hellfire burn him through his armour. The sentry tried to stab after Varien, but missed. Above the monk, there was the sound of an explosion as gouts of flame shot out the lighthouse windows. The leaning structure shuddered. Another fireball? Varien thought. Trailing smoke, Varien rushed to Theryn’s side. He stood squarely before the great hell-hound that was preparing to strike. Ah, Nessian warhounds, Fiendsbane said in Varien’s inner ear. At last, worthy opponents appear! Varien raised his sword and slashed down on the warhound’s chainmail barding, penetrating it. Varien unleashed a divine smite and a radiant flash that gleamed like lightning in the storm. The warhound yelped and staggered back. Varien pressed the attack with his shield, knocking the creature to the ground. A triumphant look crossed Varien’s face as his raised his sword again and stabbed violently downward. A second radiant smite blasted the creature, which writhed on the ground. “Someone needs to put this hellhound down,” Varien growled. The beleaguered sentry, breath fogging as he ran up, slipped slightly on the wet grass as he began to cast a spell on the paladin. “For the last time, stay where you are!” he shouted. Varien felt a great weight begin to press down on him as the sentry cast hold person . “You can never hold me!” Varien said. “You are not worth my breath.” The sentry’s face fell. Back in the tower, Siegfried could hear booted feet coming up the circular stairs. A berobed baddie stumbled out into view, looking at Narn for direction. “Servant, fetch your lord so that I may put him down quickly,” Siegfried said with mock tiredness. The half-orc could also hear the sound of frantic chanting from several levels below. “That sounds important,” he said to himself. Theryn strained at the tentacles that held him at bay. He shouldered his bow and pulled out his bo staff. He swung his staff at the creature and hit it squarely, and again on the backswing. Theryn unleashed his stored fire energy, which washed over the creature’s black, leathery swing to no effect. The monk then hit the warhound with a stunning strike. The creature whimpered and lay on the ground, immobilized. Narn hurled a bolt of hellfire at Bob, who cast shield. The bolt of flame splashed against an invisible barrier in front of the sorcerer. Darn , said Narn. He then barked something in Infernal, directed at the shambling plant creature, and backed towards one of the windows. From the next chamber, the low bass-hum of the beacon cycled upwards into an arcane shriek. Outside, Theryn and Varien saw the sickly bolt of light emanating from the lighthouse increased in intensity, and froze in place, as though it had locked onto something out in the waters off the coast. The monk and paladin exchanged an uneasy look. Air-wen drifted out of sight like a ghost wolf, floating down the circular stairwell towards the sound of chanting. Reaching the ground floor, he spied a group of robed cultists standing around a humanoid figure wreathed in magical flames. The air elemental spun up a tornado attack that flung the hapless humans around the room, knocking the burning man out the doors of the lighthouse back into the storm. Hearing the menacing sound of the beacon, Siegfried leapt into action, rushing into the second room, easily dodging the slam attack from the shambling mound. He cast animate object s on the beacon’s swivel-mount, wrenching it from the floor with a protesting sound of bending iron and crumbling stonework. Nearby, a discarded knife and fork also rose up from their place setting at the half-orc’s command. “Destroy the shambling mound!” Siegfried commanded the animated objects. Immediately, the knife and the fork flew at the shambling mound, followed by the free-floating beacon, which slammed into the creature. The animated object crashed through the wall partition, its Fresnel lenses shattering as it forced its way through the doorframe. There was a hissing sound as the beacon’s light seared the wooden framework of the lighthouse roof, blasting shingles off from the inside. The shambling mound reeled from the attacks. Varien heard some ominous structural sounds from the upper portion of the lighthouse as the beacon’s spotlight suddenly went askew and winked out of sight momentarily. On the ground floor, there was the sound of a rushing wind and shouts of alarm from within the lighthouse. Then, the double doors were blasted open and the flaming body of the humanoid flew through the air to land in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. The burning man frantically rolled about on the ground in a vain attempt to douse the flames. He was wheezing something in Infernal that Varien could hear. “Ugh…Lorcan…the Hand of Nessus calls to you!” Lorcan , growled Fiendsbane. I know that name. “Your servant…begs you!” the humanoid cried out as he continued to burn. He writhed and shuddered as the magical flames sank beneath his skin, turning him to ash. There was a sizzling sound audible through the storm. Varien smiled and nodded. As the humanoid’s corpse froze into an ashen statue, the sizzling sound continued. Varien frowned. A flaming circle, throwing off sparks like a spinning Catherine Wheel, appeared above the dead magic-user. The circle turned into a portal, through which a tall humanoid creature stepped. The red-skinned creature was resplendent in burnished half-plate armour of painfully exquisite workmanship. Two small horns poked from his head just below his hairline, and his majestic wings were folded smartly on his back. A forked tail curled behind him. In one hand he clenched a wicked glaive that had been forged by no mortal hand. His handsome face was twisted in an amused sneer as he surveyed the chaos with half-lidded eyes of deepest black. A cambion, Varien thought. Half-fiend. He opened his perfect mouth and spoke with two voices; one, a deep baritone, and the other a faint echo of agonizing screams in an indecipherable fiendish dialect. “Oh, Loreloth,” he said with an almost weary tone as he looked down at the ashen corpse before him. “In life you were a poor servant, and in death you have not changed your ways. Tsk, tsk. Why have you called me to this tedious place? Loreloth, you have embarrassed yourself. I raised you from the dead once, but I fear I shan’t be doing that again. I think a few eternities spent as a soul larva will better suit you.” The cambion sighed and looked up at the lighthouse, which was swaying in the strong wind, with eldritch light flitting through gaps in the stonework and faint crashing sounds echoing across the cliff. He sighed again. “I should have known you were incapable of arranging a simple rendezvous.” With that, he struck the ashen corpse with the butt-end of his glaive, causing it to collapse and melt away in the water. The cambion turned his attention to Varien and Theryn. “Right. If you foolish humans would care to line up in the order in which you would like to die, that would save me time.” He looked over at the warhounds. “Lucius, Scratch, do what you do best.” The hellwasps were abuzz with the arrival of the cambion, and their zombie host lurched forward, arms outstretched. A cloud of stingers flashed out from the zombie’s chest cavity. Varien blocked the incoming stinger with his shield. The second stinger caromed off Varien’s armour. Scratch howled and unhinged his jaw, flames building in his mouth as he breathed a cone of hellish fire at Theryn and Varien. The hapless sentry found himself caught up in the warhound’s flame attack, screaming horribly as he was burned alive. Theryn and Varien ducked as the flaming cloud rolled over them. Varien was badly scorched, while Theryn managed to avoid taking damage. Alec’s seagull familiar took note of the paladin’s plight and took off from its perch in a nearby tree. It flew up to the lighthouse and squawked insistently at Alec, who nodded. He grabbed a piece of silicate from his pocket and jammed it into the curved wall of the lighthouse, casting shatter . There was a thunderous sound that rattled the wall, knocking several stones loose. He unlimbered his mercurial greatsword , and swung mightily at the wall, bashing it outward. It crumbled into rubble that fell down the side of the leaning lighthouse. Spying the prone warhound, he grabbed his hand crossbow and snapped off a pair of shots at the fiendish creature. There was a howling wind and a spray of wind as the storm entered the lighthouse. The lighthouse shuddered and shook. “Was that a load-bearing wall?” Siegfried said above the creaking and crumbling sounds of snapping timbers and loosening stonework. “Shoddy workmanship, if you ask me.” He figured there was less than half a minute before the entire building fell into the sea. There was a wet slapping sound on the sodden ground as debris from the collapsing lighthouse wall landed on the ground near Varien and Theryn. There were panicked whinnies from the tethered horses, who did not like the seismic vibrations one bit. “Varien needs help!” Alec shouted at Bob, who moved next to his brother. Bob pointed a finger at Alec and Varien and twinned heal . Alec and Varien could feel the invigorating magic healing their wounds. Bob moved his spiritual weapon and struck the shambling mound. “Yeemik!” Siegfried called. “That devil has magic axes if you want them!” Yeemik got to his feet and swapped out one flail for another. “I do my best work when I’m awake,” he growled as he stepped towards Narn. He began to strike the devil repeatedly, blasting him with divine smites as he scourged the fiendish creature with his flail. Narn reeled from the blows. Varien noticed that the lighthouse was beginning to sway and lean even more precariously over the cliffside. He gritted his teeth and caste haste on himself and Theryn. He dodged between the warhound and the hellwasps. “Devil,” Varien said, as he pointed his sword at the cambion as he approached. “I swear to you on my life and my blade that you shall not be permitted here!” He cast a vow of enmity on the creature. “Do not presume to threaten me, human,” the cambion replied. “I am the son of Invadiah and brother to fifty-eight Erinyes sisters. If you wish to know pain, continue on your course.” “Oh, I know pain, Lorcan, and I come to deliver it,” Varien said. Lorcan’s eyes widened slightly, and he smirked anew. “Ah, the wielder of Fiendsbane, is it? You had my indifference, now you have my curiosity.” “I think I deserve more than your indifference,” Varien said as he struck with Fiendsbane. There was a holy flash of radiant energy as the sword connected with the cambion. He contemptuously smiled, a bit of black blood at his lips, as he cast hellish rebuke . Varien cast shield in response, canceling out the cambion’s attack. “You see the fate of your servant?” Varien pointed at the melted puddle of ash nearby. “That is a divine revelation of your future, Lorcan.” Lorcan’s shaped eyebrow arched slightly. “So, ‘twas you who banished Vashi back to the Nine Hells. How droll.” The cultist next to Narn cast hold person on Yeemik. The Tiefling grimaced as he froze in place. Down below, through the ruined remains of the front door streamed a number of hooded figures. It was obvious from their mannerisms that they were not interested in fighting; rather they fled towards the carriages and horses. Theryn kicked away the remains of the shadowy tendrils and fired a stream of poison at Lorcan, who ducked easily. The monk turned his attention towards the stunned warhound, rocking it with a strike from his bo staff. Theryn marked the creature with his favoured foe ability and struck again, and again, until the creature was stunned yet again. Theryn danced around the warhound and avoided a zombie’s flailing fists, while a hellwasp crawled out of the zombie’s mouth to bite the monk as he moved by. He reached the cambion and struck him from behind with an unarmed attack. Narn twirled his axes as he smiled, showing that his teeth were as barbed as his body. I’m going to enjoy this, you mongrel , he said to Yeemik as his spine-covered tail whipped out and slashed violently across the Tiefling’s face. Yeemik, frozen in place, couldn’t even cry out in pain as the barbed devil hacked into him relentlessly with his axes, savaging him. Narn circled the bleeding paladin with his weapons, chuckling evilly. The eldritch beacon, off-balanced, tried vainly to blast a target in the room but struck the shambling mound instead. There was a flash of light and the stench of brimstone and the shambling mound disappeared. Air-wen drifted out the entrance of the door and spied the nearest warhound. He gathered up his gaseous form and barreled towards the prone fiend, blasting it until the creature expired messily. Air-wen whirled and attacked the second creature, but missed. Siegfried sent the animated dagger into the face of the cultist, knocking him backwards. Yeemik suddenly sagged to the floor as he was freed from the man’s hold person spell. The fork and the beacon careened towards Narn, crushing the fiend’s armour. “Narn, I’ll have those axes!” Siegfried called out. In exchange for? Narn asked. “Servitude under me!” Siegfried replied, and unleashed three eldritch blasts. Narn was impaled by three glowing swords. He dropped one of his axes as he expired in a puff of brimstone. Siegfried nodded to Yeemik and indicated the fallen axe. “Will that suffice your needs?” Painfully, Yeemik reached down to grip the axe and test its heft. He nodded grimly. “Then let’s get back to work,” Siegfried said. Lorcan grimaced, spinning his wicked glaive as he attacked, slashing Varien with his weapon. Sparks flew as Varien’s mantle of flame burned him slightly. “I know you, Lorcan,” Varien said. Lorcan spun about and struck at Theryn, slipping past his defences. The glaive burned the monk as it cut him. The glaive spun around and clanged against Varien’s shield. The cambion leaned in, forcing Varien to push back with all his strength. “I,” Loran said, “am a Collector of Warlocks, Patron to the Toril Thirteen, and you too shall kneel.” The hellwasp swarm attacked Air-wen, striking him with a pair of stingers. The air elemental’s poison immunity blunted the worst effects of the attack. The zombie swung his fist and slammed Air-wen. The warhound growled and unleashed another flaming breath attack, knocking the druid out of wildshape. Two of the fleeing cultists were caught up in the flames and died instantly. Erwen landed on the ground and looked up at the warhound. “Nice doggy?” Alec grabbed his brother and leapt out of the hole he’d created in the lighthouse wall. Landing hard in the soft ground below, he set Bob down and surveyed his surroundings. Nearby, some frantic cultists were untying reins and tethers in an attempt to get their horses and carriages free. He drew his mercurial greatsword and slashed at the nearest cultist, opening a long wound across his back. His second swing took the man to his knees. Bob could see a melee taking place around the edge of the lighthouse, and Erwen standing before a massive warhound. He cast a twinned guiding bolt at the nearest cultist, which missed, and the warhound, which arced out and impacted on its flank. “Begone, doggo!” Bob called out. The shambling mound returned to his space, its vegetation sizzling, and it lurched towards Siegfried, slamming at the half-orc. Siegfried cast shield and blocked the attack. “A good hedge goes down with its house,” Siegfried said. He turned to Yeemik. “Jimmy! We’re leaving. This window’s good.” Yeemik rushed at Siegfried and tackled him out the window, landing on the outer roof of the lighthouse’s main floor, but not before the shambling mound struck at the half-orc with a limb made of roots and vines, bashing him. Siegfried got to his feet and stared down at the melee on the field outside the warehouse. Then he looked at the blade affixed to his gauntlet and knew what he was going to do. Yeemik healed himself with his paladin powers. Varien slashed at Lorcan, who parried his blow contemptuously. Gritting his teeth, he struck again, getting Fiendsbane in beneath the devil’s breastplate to draw some black blood. Varien shoved him with his shield, knocking him on his back. Varien slashed the fallen cambion with Fiendsbane, blasting him with a smite. “Retreat to your hells, Lorcan!” Varien shouted. Behind him, two cultists got onto their carriages. Alec slashed at one, who fell headlong and headless to the ground, while the other took off, whipping his horses as the wagon bumped and crashed through the cemetery on its way to the southern path. Theryn spun his quarterstaff and struck Lorcan squarely. He attempted to stun the cambion, but the fiend was able to resist. Theryn unleashed his venomizer and Lorcan caught a face-full of poisonous cloud. He followed up with an unarmed strike and enacted favoured foe , laying further hurt on Lorcan. Inside the lighthouse, the roving beacon struck the only remaining target – the cultist, who winked out of existence. Erwen cast erupting earth on the Nessian warhound, sending the cemetery into a roiling mass of tombstones, stone coffins, and grinding rocks. The warhound howled as it was caught in the fountain of churned earth and stone. Further south, the escaping carriage was also caught, losing speed as its rear wheels disappeared into the mire. Its horse whinnied in terror as it tried to drag the half-submerged carriage out of the muck. Siegfried gave a mental command to his animated minions. “Chaos!” The lighthouse began to shake violently as the beacon frame slammed repeatedly into the walls. Siegfried leapt from the rooftop with his bladed gauntlet, intent on stabbing the cambion. Lorcan raised his glaive and impaled the half-orc in the shoulder, bringing him to a sudden stop in mid-air. Siegfried felt magical energy surge through him, though he managed to fight it off. Interesting , he thought. Lorcan fixed Varien with a look of grudging respect. “Well, Wielder of Fiendsbane, it would appear that you have won this round. I won’t say you have my respect, but you have made an impression.” With that, he beat his wings and shot up into the storm-wracked sky as the roar of thunder was joined by the roar of the crumbling lighthouse.