Fable - Ask Monsters In A Cage

[Matias Vaquero]

As soon as Harlowe tugged them into the small alcove Matias threw up a hand. His fingers curled and a wall of ice flickered into being just inches in front of him. The fire cascaded against the meager protection, rushing over it as it poured through the rest of the cavern.

The small of singed flesh lingered in the air as the explosion finally passed. Soot and sulfur clinging to the air. Matias wrinkled his nose, turning his head towards Felice and slowly nodding his head. "Yeah."

He agreed.

"Ba-" Before Matias could even finish the singular word a loud crack rang through the earth itself. Then it was quickly followed by another, followed by another. The ground began to shake, and above them a raucous noise began to thunder over and over again. The frost giant grimaced, glancing at his two companions.

"The walls are coming down!" His voice, even at a shout, could barely be heard over the sound of breaking earth. "We have to get out!"

Lest they be crushed by the weight of their own defenses crumbling.

With a Gentle nudge at the other two Matias once again broke off into a Sprint. He rushed into the hallway, dodging falling rocks and erecting pillars of ice to hold the tunnel up long enough for them to pass through. Each step seemed less sure than the last, utter destruction raining around them.

 

[Harlowe]

There was an old nursery song that went something like:

Calnor's Gates are Cra-sh-ing Down; Cra-sh-ing Down
Calnor's Gates are Cra-sh-ing Down, my Fair Lady.

It went on for several verses as the 'fair lady' ordered her men to try and fix it to no avail ending in the death of everyone inside the mythical Calnor. It was a song that jumped ludicrously to the young vampire's mind as the walls and ceiling above them begun to cave in.

Harlowe leapt ahead of the others and then seemed to run ring around them like some common sheep dog. But what she was doing was a little clearer as they went. Bigger bits of rock she rammed herself against to turn into smaller bits of debris that would not kill her friends. When gaps in the floor opened she was suddenly by their side to steady them. And when she was not ensuring something was about to kill them she was clearing the rubble in front of them so she could keep moving.

"Hurry!" she shouted, hovering at the bottom of the steps with her hood up to protect her from the sun that was streaming down.

 

[Felice]

It was hard to deny that sometimes Felice really liked that Matias was on their side.

First, the ice wall to protect them from the flames and then his little pillars that, presumably, helped to hold up large chunks of the "ceiling" above them. Of course it didn't hold back all of the debris but it helped out well enough to keep the trio safe from the burnt of the falling rubble.

Add to it the vampire that was running back-and-forth between the other two monsters. Knocking a chunk of rock to one side, grabbing Felice's shoulders when she stepped into an opening gap in the rocks on the ground. It was almost dizzying just how hard the fanged monster was working to keep her two comrades safe.

She finally saw the steps just ahead of them while Harlowe pulled her hood over her head."Let's go," Felice said mostly to herself as she placed her first foot onto the staircase. She started to run to the top with her friends behind her only for the top half of the stairs to fall aside.

Strands of hair flew upwards to the gap that led to the surface. They wove themselves into tangles that could easily be climbed like a rope ladder. "GO!" she shouted, ready to pull herself to safety the moment that Matias and Harlowe climbed out.

 

[Matias Vaquero]

Matias didn't hesitate.

Not for a second did he try to argue with them, not for a moment did he question the methods that they took. Harlowe and Felice were his friends, perhaps reluctantly at first, but his friends nonetheless. They had come to trust one another over the last few months, a fact he'd accepted.

A fact he was now grateful for.

The Frost Giant rushed forward, scaling up the ladder that Felice had crafted. He practically threw himself up the wall, hands moving faster than his mind could command them.

It was the first time he had truly felt panic since his turn, the first time fear consumed his heart.

There was not much that could kill him now, he knew that, but the earth itself falling upon his head was something he was sure would fell even him. So he rushed. He ran. He moved like a bolt of lighting. Matias practically threw himself out into the sun, rushing passed the gap of the shed.

He leaped from the cavern, his head turning back to see if Harlowe and Felice made it...just in time to see the wall of the city crashing down into rubble.

 

[Harlowe]

"Oh we're so going to get blamed for that."

Harlowe had flowed swiftly up the red ladder of curls after Matias and was crouching on the edge of the hole with a hand held out in case Felice should need it. Her ruby eyes however were fixated entirely on the wall that had just come crashing down and the army which had seemingly appeared from nowhere rushing towards it with yells and the sound of horses galloping hooves. It didn't look like all of their forces however. Some must still be waiting on the other side of the city for Doyle and his crew to blow up that wall.

How long till they realised that wall was never coming?

"We need to get back in there, there's nothing we can do here now." It was time to fight the good old fashioned way.

 

[Felice]

Her hair contracted to pull herself upwards after the other two had gotten to safety and Felice grabbed at Harlowe's hand to help lift her the last bit of the way out. Just barely wriggling out of the hole before the rubble collapsed in, exposing what had once been the exterior wall.

"Maybe we can find someone else to blame," her face shifted away from the trio, hoping that maybe there'd be someone else affiliated with the city guard present. No dice.

An eyebrow lurched upwards at her vampiric friend's second statement. Back in there? For what? "Why would we go," she mused a second longer before adding, "ohh, right! I understand."

They'd find themselves a scapegoat and be off the hook.

 

[Matias Vaquero]

Matias rolled his head, looking at Felice. "We really have to make sure you don't get hungry anymore."

He was sure now that they should have just told her to eat Doyle instead of save him.

"Think your brain slows down a little." The Hair demon was the closest thing that Matias would consider to a friend among the regiment, but...well this entire time she had been acting more than a bit ditsy. He chalked it up to hunger though.

Usually she was a lot less...well more herself.

His lips thinned for a moment as he watched the broken segment of wall, the shifting warriors that ran towards them. A frown touched his features. "We have to stop them here."

He told the two women.

"Harlowe...get the others." The Frost Giant said. "Felice, watch my back."

Slowly he stepped forward. "I'll stall them yeah?"

The Regiment had never lost a battle. Had never given up. They certainly would not here. Not because of them.

 

[Harlowe]

Harlowe stared at Felice as though it were her who had just sprouted wings and a lions head. The monsters might have been exactly that but... where else was there for them? Nazaar had said to her in the beginning she was free to go where she wanted but she would always want to come back. At first she hadn't understood it but now? After a year of service? Truthfully she couldn't imagine herself anywhere else.

Shaking her head slightly she glanced to Matias at his instructions and nodded. The army had not yet reached the collapsed wall.

"Follow on Doyle when you can," was her only parting words before she was gone in a streak of silver.

 

[Felice]

"My brain isn't slow it's," realization dawned on her quickly. They were besieged, they had been for awhile. It had been a long day. "Got it. I'm ready."

They'd been in fights before and there was no doubt that the three of them could take down a group of soldiers on their own quite easily. But an entire army? That seemed a bit of a stretch for just three monsters. Harlowe was gone in a flash in accordance with Matias' plan and her farewell words reminded Felice of their newest ally.

She puckered her lips and a sharp whistle followed. Within a few seconds Doyle was only a few meters away, his spined tail raised in the air as a low growl escaped his lungs. "Hold back Doyle, we may need you to make a quick get away." If, no more likely when, they were overwhelmed they'd need to fly to the rest of the regiment. Take up defenses elsewhere.

For now though, the manticore would be there to help defend the rear as Felice's red hair extended to cover the frost giant's flank as the first of the marching army begin to peak over the nearby rubble.

 

[Matias Vaquero]

Matias glanced back towards the others, watching as Harlowe darted away and Felice took up a position behind him.

The Frost Giant nodded, then turned back towards the wall.

As a child he had dreamed of dying on the battlefield. He had idolized the heroic charges of old, the self sacrifice of knights and soldiers who were there for their brothers. In the end that wasn't how he had died. It hadn't been a shameful death, but a wasteful one.

He and his had been slaughtered, rent into a thousand pieces by monsters they had not had a chance again. Then when he'd been offered, Matias had taken another life. A life that now could be lived in glory.

The glory of old.

A breath filled his lungs, eyes closing. Fingers curled into fists, and he focused every little bit of that strange twisting within himself. The air grew thin once again, cold. A cascading torrent of freezing air fell down from the sky, emanating from the Frost Giant.

Then that torrent burst forward. It rushed in the form of a massive rising pike of ice. A mountain forming within the gap of the wall and piercing through the men that rushed through it. Cries of battle turned into screams of agony as the first charge found itself battered aside. Only the flanks remaining, desperately rushing through the small gaps Matias had left within the bulwark of ice.

 

[Harlowe]

"Bloody ice," Harlowe swore as she picked herself off the floor. She'd made it a second before the monstrous ice wall went up but not soon enough to avoid the patches of ice on the floor resulting in her slip and sliding her way into the city proper. She stood and patted herself down to make sure there were no broken bones and then she was off.

Nearly blown up, nearly fucking buried, nearly turned into a popcicle... it was not the best day she had ever had in the Regiment.

Naturally the sound of an exploding wall had bought people running to see the commotion but the stopped when they saw Harlowe, who quickly rushed into an explanation of what was happening. It wasn't long before the cries of monsters sounded and they begun to pour out of the little gaps to force back their foe.

 

[Felice]

Felice was never able to get used to the bitter cold that Matias could summon. She exhaled and her hot breath was visible for just a second at the initial casting of the frost giant's abilities. It was always awe inspiring to see the capabilities of the various monsters who made up the regiment and Matias was no exception.

He'd managed to funnel their numbers and if Felice had ever been an experienced soldier or a tactician of any sort she'd have realized that this situation greatly benefited the defending forces. Of course, it required that forces actually be present to take advantage of that strategem.

But Harlowe was handling that and Felice knew she could trust her friend.

Should we be falling back? was her initial thought until splays of her hair thrust outwards and struck true at the first foes that got even remotely close to them. If they dallied they'd be overrun here, particularly if Harlowe's reinforcements arrived much later.

It was Doyle who stepped forward. Graceful in his own way as he arched his tail over his head and the spines of it all pointed towards their rushing foes. Without warning a brackish acid surged forward and connected with the next wave of approaching foes, searing flesh and resulting in uproarious shouts of agony.

 

[Matias Vaquero]

Matias was tired.

Frost Giants were a hearty people. Difficult to kill, near boundless control over the frost, but even they had their limits. He had been running on empty for days now. Normally he needed to eat like a King, and behind these walls he'd not even been afforded the meal of a peasant.

Starvation had not taken the same toll on him, as it had the others. It had always been there, but he'd been able to ignore it. Yet as he'd burned more of his ability, as his magics continued to be used again and again...he could feel himself wane.

His mind was far from this place, consumed by some fog.

Yet he continued. His fingers twitched, his arms wrenched, and the wall of ice burst into place. Frost crushed rushing soldiers, broke apart formations. Men were frozen solid, feet became stuck.

Matias did all that he could.

He pushed himself, pressed. All in a vain hope of reinforcements.

 

[Harlowe]

The minotaur was the first out of the icy wall. With a bellow the giant bull charged, club raised and horns lowered. Horses reared and threw their riders as it came at them and foot soldiers not quick enough to get out of the way found themselves gored to death by the razor sharp points. Screams begun to fill the air and whoever avoided the horns was brought down in a hail of brutal strokes of the club. The other monsters poured out in Samson's wake.

All of them were tired, half starved as they were, and a few stopped to feed on the dead or dying along the way. With their base natures exposed those of their foes without a hardened stomach began to flee lest they too became an afternoon meal. The mix of people fleeing and charging, attacking and defending soon caused a create sea of chaos in which man and monster soon became fixated on one sole thing.

Survival.

 

[Felice]

Had Felice still been human she likely would've been petrified by the sudden wave of monsters that came crashing through, slaughtering humans with such grim efficiency. The sounds of screams, the crunching of bones as some of them fed, and the clash of metal. But this hadn't been Felice's first fight and rather than fear the charge of the regiment filled her with hope. Courage.

"Get down!" she cried to Matias as a clump of hair folded over the two of them to deflect a volley of arrows that rained into their position. A slit in her hair formed to see that the archers who had just launched their assault were dispatched right after the first volley by Samson's mighty horns.

She resumed her own defensive stance and parted the red sea of her hair so that the frost giant could continue his offensive. Felice continued impaling the odd attacker who'd come to close to them as her eyes scanned the horizon, hoping to see Harlowe somewhere in the midst of the chaos.

 

[Matias Vaquero]

Matias crouched down almost immediately as he heard Felice shout. Her words echoed through his ear, a ringing reaching through his skull.

The sounds of battle were nothing new to him. He had survived and thrived in a dozen battles as a human, and after joining the regiment he'd only suffered through more. During none of them however had he been this tired, used so much of his energy. He was fading, and when Felice's hair pulled away from him he could feel only the weight of the world on his back.

He struggled, grimacing.

Standing seemed impossible. Like a titan was grasping his shoulders and pushing down on them. A groan escaped his throat, he tried to force himself to stand, but it simply wasn't to be.

The frost giant seemed to wave, half falling back as he desperately called upon more of his magic.

Jagged spikes of ice burst from the ground, stabbing through men and spilling their blood to the floor. Matias fought desperately, forcing through even trickles of his power until he could manage no more.

Then finally exhaustion took him.

One moment he was in a sea of battle, surrounded by the death of his people and the glory of their war. Then the next he sprawled onto the ground, consumed by the darkness of the Abyss.

 

[Harlowe]

Fighting in a blood bathe when you were on the edge of starvation was a testament to a persons iron will. Unfortunately, for most of the humans fighting, the monsters they faced were beyond such restraint.

Harlowe dropped a lifeless, twitching corpse to the floor and stood to wipe her mouth clean. She didn't know why she bothered when she was covered in human debris but it felt... wrong to leave her food around her mouth so to speak. Probably some manner drilled into her from a young age. Her eyes scanned the field which was now a muddy mess of mutilated bodies, snow, mud and more unspeakable things that turned even her stomach. She stumbled over the carcass of a fellow recruit and nearly had her head lopped off by a frenzied axe man. Judging by the spurs and the uneducated way he swung his weapon about he was a dehorsed cavalryman who had picked up the first weapon he could find.

The vampire stepped back just out of the half-moon blades reach and then darted in. Her fist went straight through the mans chest to the beating heart within which she ripped out with the man still conscious. She tossed the organ to the banshee passing her who devoured it with gleeful thanks.

The tide was turning, slowly, but turning, so Harlowe turned to try and find her friends among the chaos.

 

[Felice]

In a blink another strand of Felice's hair lashed outwards, impaling yet one more of their attacker's. Things were beginning to get far too dicey for her liking. The longer Matias, Doyle, and herself held this spot the more they were being overrun. Maybe, just maybe, they could hold out long enough for the reinforcements to make it to their location. She knew that Harlowe would come as quickly as possible and between Felice's hair, Doyle's acidic spines, and Matias' frost magic they seemed to be keeping up with the onslaught.

Until, to her horror, Felice saw the jotunn fall.

He collapsed into a heap on the ground, his magic failing him and likely hunger finally causing him to succumb. It was shocking, for a man who was insistent that he could handle anything to suddenly just fall...

"Doyle!" Felice shouted while pointing at the downed giant, "get him out of here!" With that the harionaga rushed to stand over Matias, tendrils of hair splaying out and attacking enemies that threatened her downed friend. One or two got so close that she chose to use her second row of razor sharp teeth to take chunks out of them rather than her crimson locks.

Eventually Doyle grasped ahold of Matias' collar with his jaw, his wings spread wide and he pushed off. "Get him to safety," Felice murmured as the manticore took off while she stood there, trying to fight back the seemingly endless hoard of foes.

 

[Matias Vaquero]

Matias slept.

Consumed by an unwavering abyss, wrapped in unconsciousness.

So far gone that he did not even feel the indignation of being carried by Doyle.

 

[Harlowe]

Harlowe caught sight of something red and hairy out the corner of her eye and turned to finally see Felice and Doyle. But suddenly the giant manticore was taking flight with something clutched within its enormous talons. As she squinted she realised who that person was and if they hadn't been in a more serious situation she might have even laughed. Instead she took a breath and ran. Like a silver arrow she whizzed through the battle to slam into the side of one of the cavalryman charging towards her friend. The horse screamed as it went over breaking its leg and trapping its rider beneath. Harlowe barely paused as she ran to the next and the next until between them the monsters won themselves a break.

The vampire came to an exhausted stop beside her hairy friend, panting.

"I think... I think we won," just about.

 

[Felice]

Another of the attackers fell but Felice winced as she saw a mounted knight charging at her. She wasn't certain how much longer she could keep her defenses up until a wash of silver broke through. One second there was a horse and its rider and the next they were replaced by whinnying and her vampiric friend standing by her side.

"I think this means that Vix has to give us a medal," or a promotion. If the regiment even had those.

Felice knew that once Matias was in a safe place Doyle would likely return to take Harlowe and her to him. Maybe if the battle was truly clearing up they could even get ahold of the enemy's rations so that the jotunn might have a proper meal by the time he came to. One thing was for certain though, Felice was absolutely going to tease the giant for collapsing mid-battle.

 

[Matias Vaquero]

It took nearly two days for Matias to come back around.

As it turned out, the Monsters had indeed won the battle, in no small part due the to utter disorganization that had fallen upon the enemy. Between the creatures fighting them, the wall of ice separating them, and the chaos of their plan only half working it had all come crashing down.

Through the utter confusion the defenders of the city had managed to rout the enemy forces, though the tide had only just been turned. The battle all told had been close, though none within the Regiment would admit as such.

Those who were injured, like Matias, were brought to a manor within the City. Claimed by the regiment through sheer force of will.

It was an abandoned husk of a building, but suited for purposes when it came to the remaining monsters.

Matias awoke with a start, his eyes snapping open and his body covered in a thin layer of frost. His head whipped up almost immediately. The crack of ice ringing out as it shattered onto the ground around him.

 

[Harlowe]

"I just mopped up your bloody ice," Harlowe exclaimed in an exasperated tone. Indeed she stood by the door with a mop in one hand that looked close to snapping as she wrung it, and a bucket at her feet full of water. Apparently, because Matias was 'their' friend it was only fitting that they clear up the constant drip of ice that had been going on since his collapse.

The vampire threw down the mop in a clatter and huffed.

"I'm not mopping anymore."

 

[Felice]

There had been a slight sense of worry that one of her two friends, well three now that Doyle was here, might not make it. But those concerns were quickly alleviated by Vix and then turned more into annoyance that it was taking him this long to recuperate.

At least Harlowe had been assigned to mop duty for the second day though.

"So inconsiderate," she said in agreement with the vampire, shaking her head in a show of disappointment.

During his time unconscious Doyle hadn't left the man's side, seemingly the most concerned of all of them. At the sign of Harlowe's frustration the beast arose and stepped forward, licking up the moisture off the ground before perking one of his large amber eyes upwards. The manticore raised his front paws up onto the edge of the bed and planted a huge tongue on Matias' cheek, greeting him back into the land of the conscious.

 

[Matias Vaquero]

Matias made a face of utter disgust. ”Get off of me.”

The Frost Giant said as he shoved the giant Manticore away from him. Doyle, or what was left of him anyway, apparently did not much care that he was being shoved away and happily landed back on the ground.

For a brief moment Matias simply stared at the beast, frowning, then flickering his gaze towards Harlowe holding a mop.

”I’m guessing we won?” He asked, looking to Felice a moment later.

It was fairly obvious they had, given that there were no chains around their throats nor daggers in their hearts. The building they were in looked like it was about to collapse on top of them, but he chalked that up to the usual grievances offered to the Regiment after the victory of a battle. Everyone loved them until it was time to pay up.

Typical.