Mushroom guards who have remained behind to destroy the skeleton now move forward and swarm Chops.
"Oof!" Exclaims Chops, then looks at the other mushroom men in the swarm. "You all suck."
Chops holds out an axe indicating the direction of the glow. "We have company. Lets keep the mushrooms in between us and that."
"I see it." the big dorn says as he moves to guard Chops' flank, moving with him just the way Eyvindr taught him. "We should regroup."
"Ragnar asks that we move to he and Chops." a feminine voice echoes, like a whisper in the ear. "He is thinking of ways to use the webbing to tactical advantage, using it to cut off access to one side of our formation so the enemy cannot surrounding us, but he is second guessing himself. He seems not to know how to put his thoughts to words."
Turning to the ladies, Duncan says: "Follow in my wake"
Duncan charges the mushrooms attacking Chops trying to clear a space so the group can have one side protected by the web.
Solvistania nods to Duncan, following closely behind him. She decides to save her energy for whatever approaches the group.
Ragnar strikes once again at the creature in front of Chops.
"What the...? Mini says as the glow lights up the distant corridor. "Hold on.
The raven flits into the darkness toward the glow, cautiously taking a closer look, trying to keep as safe a distance as possible while still being able to make out what is causing the light.
Hugi stays with Ilona, chattering away while detachedly surveys the violence. "Once this is over it may be useful to harvest those spores from these creatures, and perhaps some from the growths that we have seen on the walls. Gilian may be able to distill anti venoms or sleep agents from them. They do not seem to be terribly tactically minded, do they?"
Chops silently attacks with both axes any nearby mushrooms.
|
A knight charges his foes and his hand guides the solemn blade in a deadly dance, but he fails to fell even a single opponent, although he severely wounds two of them. Dworg and Dorn account well for themselves, although Chops almost repeats Duncan's mishap with the sword. Muni flies at the reddish glow, but whatever it is, it is still too far to be seen.
Gilian and Pebble double move to join Chops and Ragnar
Despite noticing the red glow, Sorok cannot seem to dislodge himself from the enemies surrounding him and so continues swinging to cut a swath through them.
Ilona surges forward, her sword in hand she steps up behind the line of attack, a hand reaching up to lay on Duncan's shoulder.
"Strike well and strike hard!"
Power pulses from her hand, filling the knight with a unmatched sense of his own power. He feels the might of his forefathers fill his frame, his body insufficient to contain the greatness therein.
He begins to grow, body expanding, Sorrow matching his growth.
Chops drops his axes to his sides and lets the mushroom men run away without interference. "Hell, the bloody things are probably just defendin' their territory. Can't blame them for that." He puts away his twim urutuks and takes a fighting stance in front of Solvistania. She notices the cuts on bruises that he has earned this battle.
Solvistania notices the bruises and cuts on his face and body, and sighs inwardly. She reaches out a slender finger and caresses one of his cuts. Calling on her inner energy she causes the cut to vanish, while easing his other wounds.
"Try not to get yourself killed anymore, please?" She says softly.
Not seeing anyone more injured then himself, Duncan draws upon his magic and heals himself. Although some of his wounds close, it is still obvious that he is not yet recovered from the terrible vision.
Ilona spins quickly Requiem scything forward to strike one of the fleeing creatures in the back. As its ruined body falls the black blade flares, purple flames dancing along the length, Ilona's eyes seeming to flash with the same light.
A sultry purring chuckle seems to fill the air around her,though Ilona only seems to be taking a deep breath.
As Chops and Duncan get healed, Gilian quickly asses the extend of their wounds and add to the healing.
AS she touches each of them, she adds a warning. "There is no time for that now, but next time, tell me.”
Ilona stands straight gazing at the approaching red glow. Resolve falls upon her face, the air around her seeming to sing with the faint echoes of a battle hymn.
Her stance,the amethyst flames playing along the ebon blade, even the very scent of the air around her combined to create an aura of singular purpose.
VIOLENCE.
" All right, they're going to be coming the way we did, which means we get a few shots at them while they decend. We make them count. We hit them hard, surround them and keep on hitting until every thing that isn't one of us stops moving.
Bows to start, once we engage, front line hits and don't let up, bombard them with spells, we fail here, we're dead so hold nothing back."
Solvistania nods at the Sarcosan lady, nodding quietly. She says nothing, preferring to save her energy for the coming battle ahead. Drawing Sky'tor's bow, she mouths a thank you to his spirit before nocking an arrow, and sighting towards the oncoming threat.
As the Mushroom men brake ranks and run, Sorok shouts
Then he moves back to the rest of the group, moving up to the front, facing the slope they had come down. "There's alo' of em coming. Let's make em pay fer thinkin' they'd take one o' our own."
"Lady Ilona, I do not wish to sound ungrateful, but I believe that in my current state the fact that I am larger that normal is not truly helping me. Of course, I will probably attract attention of our foes, thus making most of you safe, but it seems that it is even harder to hit smaller targets, and easier for them to strike me this large and clumsy. I'm afraid that this spell would better serve Chops than me."
"Lady Ilona, I do not wish to sound ungrateful, but I believe that in my current state the fact that I am larger that normal is not truly helping me. Of course, I will probably attract attention of our foes, thus making most of you safe, but it seems that it is even harder to hit smaller targets, and easier for them to strike me this large and clumsy. I'm afraid that this spell would better serve Chops than me."
Ilona glanced up at Duncan her head coc ked to the side.
"Huh, interesting.You're right, Chops is larger than life.You are who you are Duncan, nothing more, nothing less."
The words seem to wash over the knight, restoring his body to it's natural state.
"Huh, interesting.You're right, Chops is larger than life...
Ragnar passes two javelins out to those without ranged weapons from the quiver on his back. The fire blackened heads carved into the image of fierce ravens scowl their promise as the companions arm themselves. "We should concentrate our fire. Solvistania, your weapon has the longest range. You choose the targets. We will add to your fire once they begin closing."
The three ghost lanterns floating around Ragnar shoot forward, the furthest moving to a distance of one hundred feet out, the other two staggered behind it, casting spectral lights in a wide swath before them.
Requiem's purple glow lights the party eerily, and around Ragnar, the air begins to faintly blink as the pin-prick eyes of the many spirits around him are revealed by the darkness, like a sea of flickering stars.
As Gilian touches Duncan to heal him, she sees his body shivering and his hands shaking.
Staying a little longer near him, she evaluates his state. From harsh, her tone take softer inflexions: "Duncan, what's happening to you? Is it linked to your scream earlier?
Looking into her caring eyes and feeling her genuine care, Duncan says, his voice still a bi trembling:"I sensed something in the caves. Something that drew my mind to itself, and it wasn't malevolent. I think it was calling to me. It gave me a name: Dracarys
And then there was the Mushroom Queen, her crown was just like those tentacles which attacked us, and she was crushing my will. She said that she was waiting for me. She showed me a moldy oozing gash in the front of her body, her reproductive organ or an equivalent, called me lover, and said that she was waiting for me. During that it was like something broke inside of me...
Standing next to Ilona, Ragnar raises one eyebrow as he cannot help but overhear Duncan's words. His expression is a strangely boyish combination of revulsion and curiosity. The words exit his mouth before he seemed to have noticed them-
"Showed him her what?"
|
|
Warned by Sorok that some enemy is coming behind you as well, and faced with red glow in front of you, you quickly form the circle. The toughest warriors are at the front and weakest among you in the middle. Soon all of you can hear shuffling sounds coming from the dirrection of the cliff behind you. In an interval of time you'd need to count to thirty both of your enemies show themselves.
From behind you comes a horde of fell. Strange creatures made of only eyes, staring in different directions, tongues sewn together to form serpent-like monstrosities that slither over the stone, severed hands running on their finger by the hundreds... At the front some dozen grotesque creatures run like dogs. They look like dessicated corpses of elves, but with legs cut of and arms sewn to the torso instead of them. They are running on all four arms, and their long claws screech while grabbing the stone. Their faces are contorted into hateful masks and dessicated lips drawn to reveal mouths full of jagged iron teeth.
And behind them all comes the Herald, armed with long spear with wicked-looking curved blade, as long as sword.
|
|
From the other side an army of fungi approaches. In the front there are creatures not alike those you have fought, but seemingly petrified. Every few moments they drop into stone, swimming like fishes using their long tentacles to move, and then they come back to the surface, continuing to draw near you with a shuffling gate. Behind them come creatures that must be their cousins of some kind. Tall and elongated mushroom-man with long sad faces, pallid skins and red eyes, holding staffs and rods made of fungi-covered bones.
Behind them comes a huge creature, a mound of lichen and mucus, without any discernible features, but tens of tentacles and brambles. Moving slowly as death.
Lyj looks slowly from side to side, taking in the approaching armies with an air of detachment. My luck had to run out sometime, I suppose.
Calm and quiet as the grave, he asks, "Could anyone hand me a spare torch, or perhaps a stick of wood?"
"Showed him her what?"
"She showed him her penis," Chops says straight faced.
Solvistania's eyes widen at this revelation, but she says nothing.
Ragnar looks toward the advancing forces both in front and behind them, his tension mounting by the moment, and then Chops' words registered in his mind.
In spite of it all the big Dwarg was somehow making fun of him.
He looked around to his companions one by one, his strange eyes glowing with pin-pricks of spirit light. He took long looks at them all. His fierce and determined paramour by his side looking for all the world like one of the battle-angels from his brother's stories. The Dragon Knight next to her only now starting to regain the easy strength they were all accustomed to seeing from him. Anvinder, the Dreamer, refusing to bow to any nightmares in this world or the next. The newcomer, Lyj, who had nearly died since being rescued, and was now staring it in the face again without complaint, only a simmering anger matching the fire of the torch he'd managed to light. His brother, standing firm in the face of the oncoming undead force, his hatred for them plain on his face. Solvistania and Gilian in the center surrounded by the fearful children, the anchors in all this madness, inspiring the rest to protect their vulnerability and through that giving them a unity and focus that without which would have long ago left the companions scattered or fallen. The hard-bitten elf, Sky'tor rolling his blades in his hands as he watched the fungal army approach, clearly planning the best way to move through their ranks. The stoic and implacable dwarf, Sorok, staring down the advancing undead horde without a word, as hard as the steel he was wrapped in. They were all monuments of resolve, grimly preparing for the end.
Except Chops. In spite of everything, the Dwarg was still finding time to carve just a little bit more joy out of the world. He understood something that in the moment everyone else had forgotten. Something Ragnar had perhaps never really known. How you die is not as important as how you lived. Ragnar had resigned himself to death more than a century ago. his life was defined by it. In his heart he had always thought of himself as dead already. He fought not to survive, but out of the simple angry desire of a child wanting to hurt the people who had hurt him, for as long as he could before they finally finished the job.
Ragnar had never really lived.
And Chops wouldn't stop.
He got it, on some fundamental level that maybe he himself wasn't fully aware of, that this was all anyone had. Every single moment mattered, and in the end, whenever it came, it was only death.
Ragnar of all people understood how insignificant that particular event was.
They were all going to die. Probably soon. The incorrigible Dwarg was the only one of the bunch of them who seemed to want to deserve it.
It started like a low rumble, almost indistinguishable from the tremors of the advancing forces, but it built, slowly, gaining weight and depth and echoing throughout the darkness.
"Heh heh heh, heh heh haha hahahaha
The Daeth-Speaker's face had split into the widest grin of his life. Tears were gathering at the corners of his eyes and his shoulders shook almost uncontrollably. He leaned on his spear, trying to catch his breath as mirth continued to roll out of him.
After a moment he looked back to Chops looking happy, and young, and completely, unhauntedly, alive.
"Ha ha heh hehe.... I don't get it?"