Heusbga the immortal leads a party fix the planet Arteris

Houk, Ankura, and Harold arrive through the eastern channel, tightening the formation around Heusbga sssi, Lo, and Senkious before the sealed iron door.

The remaining reptilian creature darts toward a concealed lever beside the platform. Senkious raises one gauntleted hand, and an unseen pressure clamps the lever and the creature’s claw together.

The skink-like beast strains against the telepathic hold, limbs trembling. Its narrow head turns between the gathered party and the immobilized trap, fear overcoming its aggression.

Senkious’s pressure slackens for a breath. The creature tears free, stumbles across the wet stones, and flees into the dark without touching the lever again.

Heusbga sssi offers the greeting toward the grated aperture, then falls silent. The party holds position around the iron door while water murmurs through the cistern channels.

A deep mechanism shifts inside the wall. The sealed iron door opens inward with a long groan, revealing a descending chamber lit by a dim violet glow.

Beyond the door, carved steps descend between black stone walls. The hidden voice waits below, while the gathered party remains free to enter together or study the opening first.

Heusbga sssi proceeds through the open threshold, descending the carved steps with the party close behind. Violet light gathers softly along the black stone.

Lo moves near the front, checking each step and the walls without touching them. Senkious watches the ceiling and the dark spaces between the descending pillars.

Houk follows with his weapon ready, broad shoulders nearly brushing the walls. Ankura and Harold keep the rear secure as the cistern sounds fade above.

At the stair’s end, the passage opens into a round hall. Violet radiance shines from shallow symbols in the floor, while several sealed archways face inward.

Heusbga sssi plants his feet in the violet-lit hall and unleashes the divinity roar. The sound rolls through black stone, archways, and hidden passages toward the beholder’s domain.

The floor symbols flare violently. Dust falls from the ceiling, sealed archways shudder, and the party’s shadows stretch across the round hall beneath the crushing echo.

From beyond the central archway comes a confused scrape, followed by several rapid impacts and a burst of warped violet light. The hidden chamber’s calm breaks apart.

The eastern sealed archway unlocks with a heavy internal clack, opening onto a sloping corridor washed in trembling violet light. The beholder’s distant movements retreat deeper within.

Heusbga sssi follows the retreating scrapes and impacts into the eastern corridor. Violet light trembles along the walls, pulsing in time with distant movement.

Lo slips ahead, lowering his body and testing each stone with claw and scent. He clears loose fragments, hidden trip-lines, and unstable floor symbols without disturbing them.

The party advances through the cleared passage. Houk guards the rear, Senkious watches the ceiling, and Ankura and Harold cover the sealed side arches.

Lo reaches the turning arch first and signals them onward. Beyond it, the corridor opens into a broad sanctum where warped violet light reveals the beholder’s retreating silhouette among broken watch-stones.

The sanctum opens beneath a canopy of purple and violet radiance. Light spills across broken watch-stones, shallow pools, and walls carved with concentric observing eyes.

Lo pauses at the threshold, crouched low, while violet reflections slide over his dark spotted fur. He studies the floor, the broken stones, and the silhouette beyond.

The beholder drifts farther between leaning pillars, its single vast eye turned away. Several smaller eyes flicker beneath it, casting thin violet beams across empty stone.

Senkious advances one measured step, watching the upper pillars. Harold and Ankura hold the rear while Lo marks a safe line through the glowing sanctum.

Heusbga sssi gathers the sanctum’s violet shadows and summons a cloud of bats from the carved eye-walls. They pour overhead, wings beating in a silent, tightening spiral.

The bats descend upon the retreating beholder, striking its smaller eyes and clawing across its floating hide. Their swarm drives it sideways between the leaning pillars.

The beholder’s eye flares, scattering violet beams through the bats. One beam catches Heusbga sssi across the shoulder, leaving a smoking welt and a sharp magical numbness.

The summoned bats continue their assault, forcing the beholder into the sanctum’s eastern quarter. Broken watch-stones tremble as its flight becomes fully exposed.

Heusbga sssi shapes a sharp magical sound within the violet air, compressing it into a piercing note aimed at the beholder’s exposed side.

The note snaps across the sanctum like a struck crystal. It jolts the beholder’s smaller eyes shut and breaks its flight, leaving it hovering rigidly above the eastern stones.

The spell’s backlash bites through Heusbga sssi’s already numbed shoulder, worsening the smoking welt and making his arm briefly heavy. The sharp note also rings through the sanctum.

The bats wheel around the stunned beholder while violet beams gutter from its closed eyes. Broken watch-stones settle, exposing a clear route toward the creature and the sanctum’s inner dais.

Senkious hurls a concentrated force across the eastern quarter while Harold and Ankura loose coordinated arrows from behind the safe line. Houk adds a heavy thrown strike.

Heusbga sssi raises his uninjured hand. Five pale missiles form in the violet air, curve around the wheeling bats, and slam into the beholder’s exposed side.

The combined assault drives the beholder downward above the inner dais. Its smaller eyes remain shut, its great central eye flickers weakly, and its retreat ends against the broken stones.

Senkious fixes his attention on the beholder. Invisible pressure lifts its smaller lids one by one, then forces the great central eye open above the dais.

Heusbga sssi releases prismatic light. A brilliant spectrum pours across the sanctum and enters the exposed eyes, scattering violet radiance into shards of red, gold, blue, and green.

The beholder’s gaze spasms, its levitation faltering as the colors flood its sight. The inner dais answers with a low harmonic thrum, and several carved eye-symbols crack apart.

The spell succeeds, but its radiance burns through Heusbga sssi’s casting hand, leaving the fingers numb and the prismatic glow briefly visible around him.

Heusbga sssi draws breath through his burning casting hand and unleashes the divinity roar, directing its force toward the beholder and the fractured dais.

The roar begins as a mighty command, but the prismatic backlash catches it inside his throat. Its power breaks into discordant waves that shake the sanctum instead of striking cleanly.

The broken eye-symbols answer the distorted roar. Their cracks widen, and the inner dais folds its light inward, forming a darkening ring beneath the beholder.

The beholder drops lower as the ring grips its levitation, but the sanctum’s violet radiance dims around the party. The clear route to the dais is now sealed by a humming barrier.

Heusbga sssi plants his feet beyond the humming barrier and releases the divinity roar again, its force focused through the fractured dais instead of against it.

The sound rolls through the sanctum as a vast command. The dark ring beneath the beholder splits apart, and the humming barrier collapses into fading violet sparks.

The beholder drops onto the inner dais, exposed and unable to retreat. Its smaller eyes snap open beneath the roar, revealing the creature and the cracked control sigils around it.

The last echo fades into the carved eye-walls. A clear path crosses the sanctum to the beholder, while the shattered symbols leak harmless violet light into the pools.

Heusbga sssi bends the fractured violet glow into brief decoy flashes, scattering false movements across the sanctum walls while Lo marks a quiet path between the safe stones.

He slips forward amid the random pulses, his grey form passing through alternating violet, blue, and gold shadows. The beholder’s smaller eyes track the false lights instead of him.

At the dais, Heusbga sssi raises his casting hand and sends prismatic light directly into the beholder’s open eyes. The spectrum floods its gaze and fractures its control sigils.

The spell takes hold, but its brilliance flashes across the sanctum and announces Heusbga sssi’s exact position. Violet cracks race through the dais beneath his feet.

Heusbga sssi lowers his casting hand and releases a quiet thread of sleep magic into the beholder’s fractured gaze. The spell slips through the broken sigils.

The beholder’s smaller eyes flutter, then close. Its great eye dims, and its floating body settles onto the cracked dais without resistance.

The final whisper fades as the beholder falls fully unconscious. Its levitation fails, leaving it resting heavily among the shattered control symbols.

A sharp pulse runs from the dais into Heusbga sssi’s casting hand. The numbness deepens, and violet sparks crawl across his fingers before dying away.

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