Down to the Last Strike

## Synopsis

In Season 2, Chapter 25: Down to the Last Strike, we bought ourselves a bit of breathing room by dragging the fight back toward the entrance – an area, very importantly, that lacked dead ends for us to get cornered into.  Safira, crouched by the door that we believed led to the fourth ethereal tear, exhibited patience while Orba and Graven drew the attention of the Coldlight Walker – hoping to sneak inside without being noticed.

As it turned out, the sound of the door opening wasn't the biggest obstacle to our stealthy maneuvering, for just past the threshold a rusty hunting trap had been anchored to the floor – and in her haste, Safira detected it just a moment too late.  Feeling the cold jaws snap around her ankle, she couldn't fully suppress a muffled squeal of pain… and the Coldlight Walker responded immediately by shambling over in her direction.

Wisely, Safira didn't immediately try to free herself – instead opting to flatten herself as best she could against the inside wall with blood still seeping down into the heel of her boot.  The walker never got a good look into the room before he was distracted by another cantrip scratching at his back, which gave Erland the opportunity to lay down our final smoke stick and dash forward to assist with the tear.

It was at this point that our undead foe started doing something new, which was always a reason for concern.  Pulling the corpses of the slain goliaths up against the nearby pillars, it anchored them into place with a thick layer of frost and their eyes turned to an icy blue – not unlike the frozen creatures we passed by on our way inside.

Through these frigid, lifeless eyes the Coldlight Walker was able to both see us and channel his ranged attacks, which further complicated our efforts to never be targeted without ample cover to lessen the odds of getting hit.  Limiting its vision became priority number one – and as we set to work gouging out eyeballs whenever an opening presented itself, Erland and Safira were laying eyes on yet another mysterious landscape in the ethereal plane.

A desolate, winding trail snaked its way past several towers ravaged by time – the tallest of which bore a platform at the top with a green tinge of concentrated power that we recognized from the previous tear.  Climbing the tower looked like an immensely perilous affair where one slip could send us plummeting to our death, but luckily it never came to that as Erland turned his attention to the screeching and ruffling of feathers coming from the top of the nearest hill.

Having made a nest in one of the smaller tower ruins, a hippogriff responded to Erland's calming gestures enough to offer an exhilarating ride at a breakneck pace – hardly risk-free but certainly preferable to scaling the crumbling walls. In a matter of seconds Erland found himself within reach of the greenish essence and wound up a nunchaku attack, which dispersed the energy and gave us an express lift back to the opening of the tear – and from this moment on it was officially time to unload.

Now only healing a relatively small amount when it reached for the ethereal tears, the Coldlight Walker looked vulnerable for the first time – but it certainly hadn't been rendered harmless.  After sinking several devastating arrows into its withered flesh, Safira was clipped by a frost beam and fell to the floor – forcing Erland and Graven to rush to her aid, which once again caused a disastrous back and forth between administering aid and repeated attacks.

After exhausting his options praying to each of the meddling gods, Graven finally broke down and offered himself to Q'usñi in exchange for his help.  Q'usñi answered, and though we didn't yet know the ramifications of striking such a bargain, it bought us a few precious moments in a time of great need – allowing us to reset and reassess.

With no healing magic to do anything more than stabilize our allies, it was up to Graven and Orba to try and bring the battle to an end.  More than once we felt we were close but even one failed spell had the potential to set us back at any given moment, and the force from consistent torrents of ice was starting to compromise the very foundation of the burial chamber itself.

Finally, in a last act of desperation, Graven abandoned his cover to charge the Coldlight Walker directly, giving Orba one last opportunity to line up her shot for a killing blow.  Pouring every bit of fear, fury and anguish into one ultimate blast of arcane necrotic energy, the creature collapsed in upon itself – leaving Orba alone in this suddenly silent hall.

With unconscious bodies scattered around the room and Khlyff Ironcloud's mission officially completed, we reflected on what had brought us to this defining moment.

## Trivia

* Natural one count: three natural ones were rolled in this Chapter. 1 each by Jordan, Riley, and Matt.