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A handful of dark elves fired stinging crossbow quarrels, but the dwarves shook off the hits-and, since their blood ran thick with potions to counter any poisons, they shook off the infa that their attack was ineffective, the drow scattered, and the dwarven wedge rolled toward the next obstacle, two strange-looking creatures that the bearded folk did not knoo ugly creatures with slimy heads that waved tentacles where the mouths should have been, and with milky white eyes that showed no pupils
The dwarven wedge seemed unstoppable, but when the illithids turned their way and loosed their devastating e wobbled and fell apart, stunned dwarves staggering aimlessly
"Oh, there they are!" Harkle squealed from the third tier of the Undercity, more than sixty feet from the floor
Bella don DelRoy’s face crinkled with disgust as she looked at mind flayers for the first time She and Harkle had expected the creatures; Drizzt had told theust, Bella, like all Harpells, was more curious than afraid The illithids had been expected-she just hadn’t expected thely!
"Are you sure of this?" the diy for fighting the squishy-headed things Her good eye revealed her true hopes, though, for while she talked to Harkle, it rely illithids
"Would I have gone to all the trouble of learning to cast fro wounded by her doubts
"Of course," Bella replied "Well, those dwarves do need our help"
"Indeed"
A quick chant by the daughter of DelRoy brought a shiht before the tizards
"After you," Bella said politely
"Oh, rank before beauty," Harkle answered, waving his hand toward the door, indicating that Bella should load
"No ti!" ca hands pressed against both Bella and Harkle’s hips, heaving theether, and Fret, the tidy dwarf, pushed in right behind them
The second door appeared on the floor, between the illithids and their stunned dwarven prey, and out popped the three di to round up the vulnerable dwarves, while Harkle and Bella don DelRoy mustered their nerve and faced the octopus-headed creatures
"I understand your anger," Harkle began, and he and his coy rolled across their chests and shoulders and heads, leaving a wake of tingles
"If I were as ugly as you" Harkle continued, and a second wave cah
" I would be y came forth, followed closely by the illithids Bella screas pushed in close, tentacles latching onto cheeks and chins One went straight up Harkle’s nose, in search of brain matter to devour
"You are sure?" Bella cried out
But Harkle, deep in the throes of his latest spell, didn’t hear her He didn’t struggle against the illithid, for he didn’t want the thing to jostle hiling tentacles burrowing under the skin of his face!
Those tentacles swelled now, extracting their prize
An unmistakably sour look crossed the normally expressionless features of both the creatures
Harkle’s hands ca and his other fingers spread wide A flash of fire erupted fro its robes It tried to pull away, and Harkle’s facial skin bulged weirdly as the tentacles began to slide free
Harkle was alreadywith his next spell He reached into his robes and extracted a dart, a leaf that had been , a snake’s intestine, and squashed theether as he completed the chant
Fro across the two feet to stick into the still-burning illithid’s belly
The creature gurgled sorasping at its neound, for while the fires still nipped at it in places, this newest attack hurt more
The enchanted bolt pumped acid into its victi at the leaking bolt It had underestie to its immediate companion, who already understood their error, and to Methil, deep in the caverns beside Matron Baenre
Bella couldn’t concentrate Though her spell of polymorph had been perfect, her brain safely tucked ahere the illithid could not find it, she sily tentacles probing around her skull She berated herself, told herself that the daughter of DelRoy should besound, a cart rolling near, and opened her eyes to see Fret push the cart right up behind the illithid, a host of drow in pursuit Holding his nerve, the tidy dwarf leaped atop the cart and drew out a tiny silver ha the nasty little weapon to bear To the dwarf’s surprise, and disgust, his haed illithid’s bulbous head and ichor spewed forth, spraying the dwarf and staining his white robes
Fret knew the droere bearing down on him; he had resolved to take one attack on the illithid, then turn in defense against the dark elves But all plans fleay in the face of that gorythe tidy dwarf into full battle rage
No woodpecker every hit a log as rapidly Fret’s hammer worked so as to seem a blur, and each hit sent , which only heightened the tidy dwarf’s frenzy
Still, that would have been the end of Fret, of all of them, had not Harkle quickly enacted his next spell He focused on the area in front of the charging drow, threw a bit of lard into the air, and called out his next dweorease, and the charge ca end
Its head s pulp, the illithid slu her loell She grabbed frantically at those tentacles and yanked theht and shuddered with pure revulsion
"I told you that was the way to fight mind flayers!" Harkle said happily, for it had been his plan every step of the way
"Shut up," Bella said to hi eneet us out of here!" she said
Harkle looked at her, confused and a bit wounded by her disdain The plan had worked, after all!
A htened, as he caotten that last little detail, and had no spells left that would transport theher tiers
"U to find the words to best explain their dilemma
Relieved he was, and Bella, too, when the dwarven wedge refor the ranks
"We’ll get ye back up," the leader of the grateful dwarves pro in their path
Even more destructive noas theiror a line of searing fire shot out from their ranks as Harkle and Bella joined in the fun
Still, Bella remained uncomfortable and wanted this all to end so that she could return to her nory Harkle had studied illithids intently, and knew as much about them as perhaps any wizard in all the Real blasts were conical, he had assured her, and so, if he and she could get close, only the top half of their bodies would be affected
Thus they had enacted the physical transformation enchantment, wherein Harkle and Bella appeared the saured two areas of their makeup, their brains and their buttocks
Harkle se rolled on Such a transfor many hours of study and preparation But it had been worth the trouble, every second, the Harpell believed, recalling the sour looks on the ugly illithid faces!
The rues, and of all the antechae, were felt in the lowest tunnels of Mithril Hall, even beyond, in the upper passages of the wild Underdark itself How much work Bruenor’s people would have if ever they tried to open the eastern door again!
But the drow advance had been stopped, and orth the price For now General Dagna and his force of defenders were free to go
But where? the tough, battle-hardened dondered Reports came to him that the Undercity was under full attack, but he also realized that the western door, near Keeper’s Dale, was vulnerable, with only a few hundred dwarves guarding thetunnels and with no provisions for such catastrophic measures as had been taken here in the east The tunnels in the west could not be co thena looked around at his thousand troops, er for er to defend their sacred hoeneral announced a moment later If the western door was breached, the invaders would have to find their way through, no easy task considering thehad already coed
Normally it would have taken et down to the fighting, even if they went the whole way at a full charge But this, too, had been foreseen, so Dagna led his charges to the appointed spot, new doors that had been cut into the walls connecting to chireat furnaces As soon as those doors were opened, Dagna and his soldiers heard the battle, so they ithout delay, one after another, onto the heavy ropes that had been set in place
Down they slid, fearlessly, singing songs to Clanggedon Down they went, hitting the floor at a full run, rushing out of the war endlessly, it see in fro in the Undercity grew ever furious