"It's coming out!" the halfling yelled as he jerked away from the stone, fear scribed in etched lines across his little face.
While all this was going on, Gord and Chert had continued their combat against the undead ancestors of the evil Maegus Yeo. Staying on the move and using the skeletal monsters as shields against Yeo's staff, they each attacked as they could. Of the ten that had appeared. Gord had felled one almost immediately, then continued hacking mightily on another, having to bound and weave with all his skill to avoid the touch of the grasping bones of their clawed hands. The exercise was tiring for Gord and not especially devastating to the undead creatures. Eight of the things still came toward them, only one of them bearing damage from Gord's sword.
"Yeow! Watch out!" Chert cried, dodging a missile that whizzed by and was heading straight for Gord. "Gord!" Chert screamed as his friend was hit by one of the evil bolts.
Gord felt like his entire body was alive with static energy. But the effect quickly wore off. and the momentarily triumphant Yeo quickly shot another bolt in the young thiefs direction. Again, the same thing happened, with Gord recovering a little more rapidly this time. "Your staffs getting short on energy, eh?" Gord taunted, this time successfully ducking his evil host's attempted attack.
Gord and Chert were slowly being forced by the undead monsters back to where the huge stone was, with Poztif immobile and light-enwrapped a short distance from it Chert was out of things to hurl at the undead ancestors of the shrieking Yeo, Gord's sword was doing little good, and as the two of them were pushed back, they saw that Biff was standing stock-still, horror-stricken, staring at the stone.
Chert ran to help the halfling. Taking the dagger from Biff's limp grasp, the barbarian wrapped it in his mighty palm and struck. A leglike extremity tipped by a claw larger than the halfling was reaching outward from the transparent stone, heading for the immobile cleric. Before the claw managed to grab Poztif, the magically keen blade sliced the relatively thin leg attached to the taloned forefoot cleanly off. This time the roar of agony from the dragon deafened all in the room, stunning and dizzying even the rotting corpses.
Yeo reeled, his cry of agony as high and piercing as the dragon's had been basso and ear-splitting. The strange man fell in a heap, holding his arm and keening. The spurt of ichor from the dragon within the stone had started a reversal of the mineral. It was now growing cloudy and translucent again, the reptilian form within it receding and growing ever more obscured. As the blood soaked deeper into the stone, tiny cracks appeared in its surface, and then the block split into several fragments with a sharp, booming sound.
"What's happening?" Poztif asked in a shaky voice. "I felt as if I was suffocating, and I thought I saw a mighty dragon about to devour met Where are we?"
"Good cleric, we are right where we were but moments before," Chert told him. "But foul things of undead form are attacking! You must do something immediately!"
Poztif needed no further prompting. He wiped his forehead as if to clear away cobwebs, turned to quickly apprize what was happening, then grasped his silvery, sun-shaped holy symbol, "Back to your graves, monstrous unrealities!" he chanted forcefully. "Your unclean spirits to the nether planes, your evil intentions withering in the Light of Burning Truth."
As if struck by a hammer, the recovering things were spun and turned about simultaneously. Reeling and tottering, they retreated from the cleric, heading toward the recess that Yeo had called them from, as bright swirls of silvery-gold light danced and played upon their rotted flesh and decaying bones.
By this time Maegus Yeo had apparently recovered. The pain seemed gone from his right arm, for in it he now held the twisted staff.
"You still lose, bastards of Goodness!" He thrust forth the staff, but only a feeble, dark purple glow came from it jumping up and down in rage, Yeo tried the attack again and again. At the last attempt the staff simply turned into dry splinters and fell to the richly carpeted floor. With a shriek of hatred, the man darted and interposed himself between the retreating undead and the recess toward which they were heading. Turn back and attack!" he exhorted them. "You must obey me. Am I not the Supreme One?"
Before Yeo could say more, two of the rotted corpses had him. He was dragged along in their retreat, howling and shrieking unintelligible things in his sing-song speech.
"Shall we pursue?" Chert asked the cleric when Yeo and his cohorts had vanished.
"No, I believe that Yeo has gone to join his ancestors and will trouble us, and others, no more."
"Hey! Where's Gord and the halfling?" the barbarian suddenly asked.
Poztif looked around and spotted the two near the long table, each trying to tug the bowl away from the grasp of the other without making a disturbance. "Such behavior is shameful!" the cleric admonished the squabbling pair.
"But pretty typical, Poztif." Chert advised the man. "Perhaps you might find it worthwhile to instruct both on the path they should be following."
Gord and Biff were ignoring the cleric and the barbarian, alternately reaching into the deep dish and moving their hands rapidly. Chert moved closer to see what was going on. "Cut it out, you pair of thieves," he said in a low, threatening tone. "That bowl goes out of here intact with Poztif — that's the vow we agreed to!"
Biff held the bowl as Gord made one last searching motion within it. "Sure thing, Chert," said the young thief. "We're just examining it."
"That's true, see?" And with that Biff held the thing up for all to observe. It appeared quite normal.
"What about those gems the dragons clutched?" Poztif asked sternly.
"Sound and whole — see for yourself," Gord replied sweetly. Biff, too, looked absolutely cherubic at that. Chert and Poztif hastened to them, snatched the dish away in a joint effort, and minutely scanned the jeweled inlays.
"Something's funny," Chert said as he peered into the huge bowl. "Didn't the green dragon have a pearl? And the gold dragon a sapphire?"
Poztif looked intently at the object for a moment, then replied, "No matter — there are pearl, amethyst, sapphire, topaz, and emerald there now. The work is intact and we must depart!"
The other three drew together at that and had a few seconds of private conversation. Then Chert spoke up. "There is another matter to handle, Your Faithfulness, ere we bid the abode of Maegus Yeo farewell forever."
"Yes, there certainly is." Biff piped up.
"A firm part of the bargain," Gord said solemnly.
Poztif looked dark and disapproving. Frown as he would, though, the three were unmoved, and he could not avoid the matter. "Well, I suppose that the former owner of this place will no longer need such worldly goods, so let us select a few items in payment for our righteous work in thwarting evil and sending its minions to their deserved fates."
There was little of real value that was portable in the ruined cellar temple. But, thinking ahead. Chert selected a medium-sized rug, Gord a smaller version, and Biff one of near mat-size, and then they hurried upstairs into the shop. There, each of the three tossed objects haphazardly into the makeshift carrying devices they had taken from the cellar. Poztif actually stopped to garner a few small objects from a rack that he thought could be "a great help to the poor." The trio ignored him, and soon they had picked over the contents to mutual satisfaction.