((Fucklongpost is fucklong.))<br/><br/>There was a burst of light that flooded the room, and an inhuman shriek came from the creature before the barbarian and cleric. Once the dust had cleared enough for her to see, Gajol looked at the demon, its hands clutched over its eyes in agony. She only needed to get one little glance at the thing to identify it.<br/><br/>"It's a nabassu, and an old one at that," she said, readying herself for battle. "Let's just hope that you're even tougher than you look, Elta. I wouldn't want to see you turned into a ghoul."<br/><br/>While the nabassu writhed in pain, still unable to see, the thing's skin cracked and fell in flakes to the floor, mostly around its front, where it had taken the brunt of the spell. Gajol took advantage of the time that was bought by slapping herself in the face a few times, yelling in a ferocious manner herself. With one last scream, slippery ropes of saliva hanging from her lips, Gajol stepped forward and took three mighty swings at the beast. All of them connected, but the first was the most fierce of them. A resounding crack signified that one of the demon's arms had been snapped in half, just above the elbow. The two others smashed into the demon rather than cut it, Gajol's swings being so wild that the flat was more likely to hit than the blade. With her last blow, Gajol wracked the beast with an upward swing, knocking it to its side. Though it was soon back on its feet, the nabassu was still blinded, and open to attack from Elta.<br/><br/>((Frenzied state right now. Best be careful if she's still conscious when the nabassu dies.))<br/><br/>"<span style="color: orange">Don't say I didn't warn you. Heheheh... aaahahahahahaaa!</span>"<br/><br/>The wicked cackle was the last that Aya would hear from the statue as she entered the door. The stairs spiraled downward, just as steeply as before, although it stunk  quite horribly about halfway down. It was enough to make someone faint of heart quite sick, though after some of the other things that Aya had surely whiffed through her adventures, it was nothing especially bad-smelling. It did, however, have the tell-tale hints of rotten meat, which usually mean that the room below was loaded with bodies, and most likely something that was being fed regularly.<br/><br/>Upon reaching the door at the bottom of the steps, the odor would suddenly gain a twist of the acrid, musty smell of a swamp that had been loaded with cadavers of varying states of decomposition. When the door was opened, Aya would find that the room was dimly lit with the faint blue glow of will-o-wisps, casting something similar to moonlight around the place. It was also much bigger than the last time that she'd been there, although not much taller. One corner of the room, taking up almost half of it, was a huge bog, full of slime and muck. The other half was dirt and clay, waterlogged and a mite sticky. Rancid blood, smashed bones and foul bits of meat were strewn about the place. In the very back, sitting almost like some kind of dog at the point where the swamp met the soil, was a dragon of the darkest black and mottled with grays and greens all over, lightening in color as the scales reached its underside. On its haunches, it was even taller than an ogre, it large, twisted horns raking the stone ceiling. It leaned forward, letting one of the wisps light its face more clearly. Acid yellow eyes glared in Aya's direction, and with a hiss, the black dragon let its tongue loll from its mouth for a moment, as though it could taste her soft, tender skin from that distance, which, more than likely, it could.<br/><br/>The dragon took a few steps forward, almost catlike in fluidity, and as the glow of the other wisps lit its body, it was clear that it was no ordinary dragon. Bony spikes were jutting from places that they should not be on such a dragon. They stuck out at odd angles from its shoulders, cheeks, jaws and hips. A few especially vicious-looking ones decorated the tip of its tail. Though it continued to step forward, until its long, slender tongue could flick out like a snake's and barely graze Aya's face, it moved no further; a chain, pulled taut, was connected to the wall behind it, and loops of a strange metal were dug into its left side. If the dragon made to move anymore, by the looks of things, it would rip out much of its flesh and probably snap a few ribs. An especially cruel form of imprisonment, to be sure.<br/><br/>"<span style="color: olive">Tell me, morsel,</span>" it whispered in Draconic, "<span style="color: olive">do you wish to die quickly? Offer yourself to me, and I will make it so.</span>"<br/><br/>Inyrra's efforts to find a foothold in the wall would be for naught, since the only possible thing to grab onto was one of the spots where the glabrezu's spells had cracked the wall, albeit slightly, not leaving enough to even get a fingertip or two in.<br/><br/>In the meantime, the glabrezu just flopped onto its rear and sat. It placed both pairs of arms in its lap and said, its voice growing calmer, "<span style="color: brown">My patience is eternal.</span>" It then stared at them, its face going about as straight as a fiend's could.<br/><br/>While Mirnea prepared her spell internally, she would suddenly get a sharp pain inside her chest at the sound of a muffled<i>crunch</i>; a couple of ribs had been broken. However, one part of Mirnea's plan did go right, for as the half-find began to squeeze tighter, a few of its rough scales dug into Mirnea's flesh, slicing open a fresh wound from which her spell was activated. With a yelp that soon became a hiss, the half-fiend fell to the floor as a viper, dazed and confused. It loosed its hold on Mirnea, and made an attempt to regain its bearings.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>