Quest The Black Mass

[Petra Darthinian]

Try as they might to normally avoid bloodshed, Fate had demanded that the Knights find it here this day. It required of them a righteous fury and a bold reckoning upon the foe they faced. Petra could feel that same ferocity race through her blood as she rode into battle, her steed charging through the fray, shoulder to shoulder with Jarro and Lyra as Faramund guided them to cleave a path through the enemies.

The collision was deafening where they met the line. She cut with her sword, snarling at the disjointed horror of blood splattering her face. The sound of metal clashing and swords ringing in the air, the screams of dying men stabbing into her eardrums as they raised goosebumps on her flesh. Passively, she prayed she never grew dull to its nauseating effects, for fear her humanity would fade with it.

As she fought, she could feel the wind picking up, blowing her hair into her face, and sending chills down her spine. The scent of rain was growing heavy in the air, and she could feel the drops starting to fall. Looking up, she saw where the clouds had originally darkened and heavied the skies from the influx concentration of black magic, and how now they were joined by a swirling cumulonimbus opposing mass. Its dark tendrils seemed to gather strength before letting loose a raucous rumble of thunder, signaling the approach of an ominous storm.

She knew in her gut that it was Norvyk, and that he was using the strength he possessed to summon a great thunderstorm. If she listened closely, she could hear his roars behind the cracks of lightning that began to dance frenetically across the sky, the eager violence in them palpable.

With each passing moment, the rain became a deluge, drenching her and her comrades in seconds as they continued to advance, their movements frenzied as they fought to push back the enemy. The rain made the ground slick and muddy, but they pushed on, the storm raging above them. Petra's hair plastering to her face, the taste of blood and sweat washing from her mouth like a prayer absolves a sin. The heavy weight of her sword in her hand and the soaked leather of her gloves that gripped her reins were the only reality she knew as she swung with ferocious precision.

As the storm raged on, Petra saw the other Knights of Anathaeum fighting alongside her, their faces grim and determined as they pushed forward. She saw the swift and precise movements of Lyra, as she spun and dodged her opponents with ease. She saw the unbreakable defense of Jarro, as he held his ground against multiple attackers at once. And she saw the raw power and ferocity of Faramund, as he charged through the enemy ranks like a force of nature.

Together, Petra and her fellow knights fought on, each one contributing to the battle in their own way. She knew that they were stronger together than they ever could be alone, and that thought gave her the strength to keep fighting, even as the rain continued to pour down on them.

But such is the weaving of Fate, a delicate dance of circumstance and more often than not, bloodshed. So when an opening parted in the line, Faramud flew on sparking hooves through the front line of the swarm. A song from Petra's lips followed him, a melody of haste to guide him.

 

[Abalon Shallows]

The Arch Mage's eyes widened as his spell had rendered their foes all the most bestial. Yet his heart was in the trim, there was bloody work to be done upon this battlefield before the day's ruination was called to a halt. Whispers came through from Glorphain himself, which set his mind to a shuddering halt, as if he was commanded by the Warlord Glorphain instead of Captain Helena in a sickening perversion of the chain of command.

'Nay.
Allow me to teach you the truth of the world, Sorcerer.'​

The ossified skin of Abalon Shallows began to crumble and tear away from itself in burning agony as the Warlord had greater command over the raw stuff of magic that Abalon dared scarcely to dream of. Abalon gritted his teeth and snapped his quarterstaff down upon the disc of energy he commanded even as his flesh was consuming itself in the open air which did pour down with rain, none of which could salve his wounds. His very soul was being warped into a corkscrew which even now shuddered and twisted at the Glorphain's dreaded control over the domain of Death.

“Upon this disc,” Abalon growled, “Upon this disc,” Abalon shuddered, and fell to one knee. His hand did not leave his quarterstaff, and pulses of black energy did ensnare him

I will not be undone by this!
I shall perserve!
I SHALL SURVIVE.

Abalon stared a thousand yard stare beyond the veil of time and space and matter and death and life to the Glorphain. Eyes white, purple energy crackling about his natural crown, Abalon stood alone with the Warlord for a precious moment, time slowing to a crawl and all pain intensely born in this moment of deciduousness.

“Upon this disc, I do bear the great and terrible deeds of this day unwrought by spell uttered by both forces! Upon my word are greater deeds unlocked, and our side, yes, our side,” Abalon spat in an envenomed tongue that brought forth more power to his own personage as the weal and deal of magic was rendered complete by his utterances, “shall not rue the day they engaged with you, Warlord!”

The will of the magic was strong, and flowed through Abalon and The Glorphain both. Perhaps too much power was being wielded this day, for the fabric of reality did streak across the downpouring sky in a crack of arcane rawstuff that singed the air with the smell of burning sulphur.

The arrows did descend...

Abalon felt his skin repair as the summoning of the necrotic energy and sighed a shivering breath as his air near froze in the air from the energies commanded. He shot both hands out to intercept the arrows as his magic whipped out in black tendrils that cracked the arrows in twain.

“By bloody might I do cast my most grievous incantation,
Wrought by sin bound contract to obey my provocation,
My order to the Captain Helena shall not be absconded,
My Order of Anathaeum shall not be betrayed by such a crackling of knuckles and blood and death!
By the power of the light and the will of the magic, by the domain of Loch, Death and Life,
I DO CAST YE OUT OF MY MIND AND SOUL,
WARLORD GLORPHAIN,
THY END HAS COME.”​

Abalon Shallows, Pursuant of Death, was placing his own life, soul and mortal wick to burn a thousand times quicker than was mortally possible, his elven heritage burning away what life was his to command. The curse that had been placed upon him by his former Master preserved his flesh, and the Arch Mage Abalon weaved two spells at once, such was his aclarity.

The first, to protect his host for the arrows that fell.

The second, a duel, against the Glorphain, if he accepted.

The forces crashed against each other, and Abalon's soul rendered itself magnificent and pale, an ocean of space between the two. If the duel was declined, there would be a significant boost to Abalon's own wellspring of power. If the duel was accepted, then they would be preoccupied with one another, but then, the Glorphain might be able to weave spells with multiplicity that Abalon did commmand. It was a risk Abalon did not shirk, for mortal lives were being lost with each second that he failed his Captain.

Music blasted itself from the depth of his soul.


“FROM THE VOID OF DEATH I DO CHALLENGE THEE, MIGHTY WARLORD.”

From the heart of death and life do I pray I survive this night,
Or else be driven away by the death of thousands upon my conscience...



Petra Darthinian Damien DeMontieaux Markus Glorphain Helena Faramund Osuin ​

 

[Markus Glorphain]

As the heavens twisted above and steel met steel and flesh on the ground below, the black smoke that came from the burning village still filled the sky. It blended with the darkness that came from the thunderstorm. Men, woman, and beast died in cries of agony and laughter. Some of his men loved the pain. And so when blades and axes were driven into flesh, some of them would invite more steel into them. Some of them would spit back blood and bile as blood choked their air supply. There was another presence. Above the clouds perhaps that commanded the storm as it did. The Glorphain answered with a command of his own. The smoke and soot that made love to the storm clouds carried with it the will of the man that had created it in the first place.

The rain that fell from the sky became as blood.

The ground that was once wet from rain and charred from the Captain's light beams had suddenly become drenched with redness. The sun itself seemed to flee from the black magick that came from The Glorphain's perverse will. Some of his men that had yet to cross blades with the Knights of Anathaeum removed their helms and drank the gift that the corrupted clouds gave to them. Glorphain himself watched from under his bull helm, its visage now covered in human-sap. The air smelled of iron and he allowed himself to breathe it in. A wide smile formed under his helm.

"Calvarymen, with me!"

The Warlord rode atop his steed along with a column of ravenous knights, all dressed in black armor, their cloaks the same color as the bloody rain that fell upon everyone. Their charge was hard and they fell upon the Knights of Anathaeum from the right. His hammer struck one of the knights in their chest, caving in his breastplate. When he fell, the Glorphain's horse had done the rest. A hoof impaled the knight's face as those black knights stormed the field. Beneath his helm, the Gorphain looked to devour.
​

__________

From the heart of death and life do I pray I survive this night,
Or else be driven away by the death of thousands upon my conscience.

I have come to answer your challenge, sorcerer.
See me as I truly am.

The worm appeared before Abalon in his mind's eye. Where the true battle was really taking place for everyone present that day. The Worm was long, so long that it threatened to wrap around the battlefield. It was iridescent and covered in a white film. Reality itself seemed to warp around it as it wriggled and inched ever closer to the sorcerer who called out to it's physical shell. It crept like a lover might creep into the covers after a long day in the field. Or how a thief might creep into one's home. Though it had no face, Abalon would know it was smiling at him. Lovingly so. The parasite carried many others with it. All of them sought to get under the sorcerer's skin. All of them sought to bring them closer to that mighty spirit. The Spirit of the Despot. The King of Worms. The Blight.​

 

[Helena]

Dragon's roar and thunder's blessing, turned to vile mutation. Perversion. Through sorcery most foul, the cleansing rain that sought to stifle the acrid smoke and heal the land, became blood. Putrid, spoiled, blood.

It did little to slow the Captain's charge. Visor of her helm slammed shut. The snarling maw of a wolf etched across its pointed mask, the proud horns of a stag sprout from its crown. Zenith, her magicked blade, still glowed red, laid across her vambrace. The willowsteel shift, runes of wyld burned a fierce green, as verdant as the needles of the proud conifer sentinels that kept vigil over their forest, as drops of blood sizzled and boiled across its cooling edge.

Come the crash. The hooves of their steeds trampled over those on the shield wall that had been blown back by the beam of dawn's light. Those knights beside her cut down on foe with axe and sword and magick spell as their horses kicked and bit an rammed forward.

Hungry spears came forward. The Captain wheeled her steed about, the weapon caught by a shield of light cast by her fellow, the wall of magick shimmered and shone. Helena shout, blood boiling the sound, and swiped Zenith upward with both hands.

From the earth came a rumble. A shake. Beneath the line of Glorphain's cavalry, split the very mantle of the ground, roots and brambled tangled wyld, a great spear strunk shot from soil. Its cruel and unforgiving point run through a cavalryman and his wicked steed, bough and branch raked others and knocked them back.

The tree, whose roots were fed with blood, surged as a locus of Wyld magick. A font of power, for any connected to the pursuit.

Petra Darthinian Damien DeMontieaux Markus Glorphain Faramund Osuin Abalon Shallows

 

[Abalon Shallows]

The arcane spectrum was an ebbing and sighing place of arcane power, a myriad of colours, a rushing ocean that toiled and submerged the faltering in endless depths of doom. The flotsam of souls that fought for their lives lingered in gathered masses and snapped and cried out in mute protestations as they were snuffed out. Foe or friend, within this domain, they appeared the same. The jetsam, the two wills that faced each other within this special place where souls were oft damned by hubris and those damned sought to spread their disposition. The worm approacheth'd; coiling, inching closer as time dilated for Abalon. His vision and mind pulsed with the practicalities of theory that ruled his mind. This place was entrenched in death, the spirits that were entwined with finality spiralled and faded.

Yet I cannot feed as this thing does upon such death...

For not one grain of sand falling from the hourglass did Abalon reconsider his rejection of Death magic's portent to feed upon the dying to supplement his own font of power. All that he had, was enough.

Or so he told himself to bolster his past to the reality of having no future should he fail here. Of others, his friends, their stories ended, no funerals, just mocking laughter and sick embrace of this Worm King. The dying would be allowed to meet whatever end they faced without being forged into his own weave.

Abalon gripped his quarterstaff, looked upon the worm and felt the irksome panic grow overwhelming as this thing enticed with promises of Blight.

This manifestation that did wriggle and crawl with seductive assurance and assurances filled Abalon with ever increasing unease and paralysis of command. It bled away power from his frame as if it was devouring his capacities. He grasped his quarterstaff with his left and felt the power bleed away from him, through his fingertips as he clawed at his manifest destiny slipping. At first the sensation of numbness, and then, the emotion of frustration and panic. This had never happened to him before. This was beyond belief, beyond his experience and belied his confident words. The unease could not be shirked through discipline or bold words, no matter what recitations Abalon brought from dry lips and parchment tongue, he stood, grasping at the channelled energy that so escaped him, lost to this all too grossly loving monster.

Only one recourse remains...

The quarterstaff was gripped within both hands, and twisted sharply as he spoke an incantation, the quarterstaff separating into two, a great gout of silver coursing between the space, a bowstring that snapped and arced in violent, unyielding power. Abalon felt the hot rush of shame as to be using such a last resort at the very opening of this confrontation.

His mind proclaimed the words that were understood by the Weave...

My soul impart this torrent of force, my life matter be spent to end thy days!

The quarterstaff gave a resounding scream of high pitched whine and chime as it reverberated with Abalon's very soul energy, ripped away in heavy bites to fabricate this ammunition. While Abalon refused to harness so many dead around him to fuel such a thing, he used his own life force to shape a piercing bolt that notched upon the silver bowstring...and with a nod, did Abalon send five years of his lifeforce as a rushing bolt of perfect white light against that parasite. It rushed silently, spear point gleaming platinum, Abalon's expression determined as he said goodbye to his future years in favour of bringing about great cost to such a looming foe.

Petra Darthinian Damien DeMontieaux Markus Glorphain Faramund Osuin Helena

 

[Faramund]

Following the road leading north by north-east, Syr Faramund left the village behind him. The wind howled at him as he abandoned his fellows to their fate, and the sudden rains brought on by Petra's dragon were bitterly cold as they pattered against his helm and plate. Droplets streaked down the curved steel to slip through the slit of his visor. An attempt by Mother Nature herself to leave him blind and directionless.

A man of the wylds, he was wise to her tricks.

Riding low in the saddle, Faramund carried on with his headlong pursuit. No amount of rain and thunder could stop him from saving the girl. Nor would any of the Glorphain's men be able to match him should it come to blades and spear-staves. And it surely will at that, the dawnling thought, catching a glimpse of the rider ahead of him through the sheeting rain.

Dressed in burnished armour, his silhouette black against the lee of the trees, Faramund watched as the rider cast a look back at him. As he turned, the rider revealed a second figure sitting in front of him. A little girl, about yea high, covered in blood darker than that staining the rider's armour. Terrified, she turned as the rider did, casting a forlorn look back at their lone pursuer.

Even at this distance, Fara could make out that the girl had been crying. She had pale skin but you wouldn't have been able to tell from the blood and dirt covering her face and clothes. What horrors did one have to be subjected to to look like that? Fara reckoned he knew. He had seen them not five minutes ago.

Driving his horse on, the knight did what needed done. His horse was no Brutus, that was for damn sure. But he moved like greased lightning and that was what settled it in the end.

Clutching his spear tightly, Faramund finally closed the distance. He could not have said how long it took him to catch up. Time didn't seem to make a damn lick of sense in moments like these anyway. Letting go of his reins, the knight used his knees to direct his horse. He could feel muscles bunching, feel his mount react to the unspoken commands as if he had been born to it.

Sensing how close Faramund was, Steppenwolf swivelled to address the threat to his right. Staring across at him, eyes unveiled, the trinemorro girl screamed as Faramund thrust his spear towards Steppenwolf's unprotected face. The lieutenant leaned back to avoid the blow, taking his mount with him. His longsword lacked the reach for a counter-cut, but he had been around long enough to know the remedy for that.

Bracing, the lieutenant flashed a rictus at Faramund as the spear came again.

Swatting the weapon aside, Steppenwolf forced his horse to move closer. As big as each other, and keening for a fight, the two warhorses nipped and gnashed at each other as they collided, hard enough that Faramund nearly fell. 'Bastard!' Steppenwolf cursed him, slashing at the big knight's head. Raising his shield, Faramund intercepted the blade mid-swing.

The counter-punch he delivered was enough to unbalance Steppenwolf, so much so that he had to drop his sword to keep from falling.

Not one to let an opportunity pass him by, Faramund did what he had set out to do. Letting his spear drop, he used his shield to shove Steppenwolf further from his saddle. The curses that followed fell on deaf ears, alas. 'Give me your hand!' Faramund shouted to the child, his own offered to bridge the gap. Turning her three red eyes to the knight, the child didn't hesitate.

As light as a feather, Faramund half-pulled, half-lifted the girl from Steppenwolf's saddle and onto his. 'No!' Fara heard the warrior cry as he willed his horse to a stop. 'The girl belongs to My Lord! He commanded it!' Bringing his horse about in a clatter of hooves, the dawnling made his opinion of the Lord Glorphain known.

Kicking up a wedge of dust so wide it blinded Steppenwolf where he sat, Faramund took off back the way they had come. The child clung tightly to his chest as they thundered through wood and valley in search of safety. Looking down at her, Faramund smiled kindly. 'Hello,' he said, noting as he did the first sparks of hope begin to light up her eyes. 'What's your name?'

Helena Markus Glorphain Osuin Damien DeMontieaux Petra Darthinian

 

[Damien DeMontieaux]

From behind the Glorphain's ranks, three of them came. Born from a similar magick that birthed the two enemies, the creatures appeared to be an amalgamation of a number of poisonous insects. They had thick, armor-like carapaces, with razor sharp claws and far too many eyes, and some of them appeared almost human. They let out a wild shriek as they reached Damien, looking to tear them to shreds at the call of their master and creator.

Ahhh, now this was a worthy adversary! A welcome addition to the pieces on the playing field, indeed. Damien's eyes twinkled with roguish bravado and delight as he stood uncowed and unmoved upon the hill, awaiting the approach of the fiendish abominations that even now lurched and crawled towards him at a pace that for all its ungainly flailing was most dreadfully swift. His ears twitched at the sound of those dreadful shrieks, which tore through the very air and assaulted the ears almost as weapons of unto themselves.

Now, to be certain, most any other being, be they mage or madman or mighty warrior, would have stood no chance against the cavalcade of horrors that now stood poised to descend upon the rogue and unleash its collective wrath. But the Glorphain was not the only being so unfortunate as to know the horrors of Yakuub firsthand. And with that knowledge, there comes a unique strength, a strength that remains undiminished whether wielded with or against forces of a similar ilk.

As the monsters reached him, the feline fellow swung his blade up from its ready stance, and in that instant, before blade met claw, the second before metal clashed with chitin, he spoke but two words that echoed out across the field; two words that somehow filled the ear with hope and valiance and the knowledge that victory was no mere gamble, but in fact an inevitability:

"En garde!"

---

It was like a dance.

This was no ballroom ballet; no wild jig nor graceful gavotte, or any other dance an audience might know. All those had an elegance and charm of their own, certainly. But none could compare to the deadly dance of the Dancing Gloam, where each step walked the precarious line that separated life from death, and to err by but an inch was to die.

As the vast claws of the first and largest of his foes—a hulking fiend vaguely reminiscent of some dreadful crab somehow merged with a vast scorpion with far too many limbs—descended upon him, Damien did not dodge aside or seek to block that crushing impact. With a neat flick of the wrist, he simply turned his blade, deflecting countless tons of force but slightly aside with all the casual ease of a pompous nobleman flicking dust from his shoulder. In the same motion, even as that same claw slammed into the earth beside him close enough to brush the tips of his whiskers in its passage, the tip of his blade darted forward, neatly piercing the soft, fleshy gap at the point where its limbs joined with the body.

The monstrosity let out an earsplitting screech of pain and fury, before slamming its claws down together on the puny nuisance that had dared to hurt it so. But Damien was already gone, his now épée raised against the first of the other two, much smaller, atrocities—a sort of cross between a spider and an ant, yet stood upright, with countless flailing, feathery limbs and antennae jutting forth from its unnaturally bloated form with no semblance of rhyme or reason, and tiny black eyes covering the entirety of its head except for the dreadful, mandible-lined maw. Slower to advance than its counterparts though it might have been as it dragged the ponderous, distended bulk of its abdomen across the earth, there was nothing slow about how its limbs slashed forward towards their target, countless tiny hooks and barbs lashing out in an impenetrable flurry as a nauseating, bubbling shriek shredded its way out of the amalgamation's hideous maw.

A more foolish fighter might have sought to cut through the cavalcade of frenzied strikes. Damien was not so foolish. With a quick step and a twirl of the blade, he simply backed out of range, eyes narrowing, before his blade raised high and darted forth in an overhead thrust—once! Twice! Sidestep, and strike again!

With each strike, another of his foe's many eyes was left naught but a popped, hollow socket oozing pus and foul black ichor. With a gurgle of impotent fury, it lunged forward, a second maw ripping open in its thorax at the epicenter of its countless limbs, innumerable barbs and teeth reaching out to seize him in their ensnaring grasp. Yet even as his horrific opponent descended upon him, even as the very earth beneath him shook beneath the steps of the first and largest creature turning to seek its missing prey, Damien stood his ground ...

... and yet, somehow, he was not there but instead crouched beneath the very body of the first enemy as it turned. Darting back and to the side from out of a low crouch, the rogue straightened with a flourish, never once having even lost his footing, even as the gaping maw of the horror he'd been facing an instant before instead collided head-on with the looming, misshapen mass of its compatriot.

The largest of the insectoid beasts let out a shattering roar as razor-sharp, barbed fangs and limbs shredded into its thorax. As one, the three vast scorpion-like tails lurched forward over its crablike bulk with terrifying speed, their vicious, poison-dripping hooks impaling the culprit straight through. Lifting the still-writhing form of this new prey into the air before it, the abomination at once put its claws to work, relishing every agonized flail and scream as with a terrible crunching and squelching it began to take its former packmate apart, devouring its still-wriggling body piece by piece and showering the scorched earth beneath with steaming, acidic black ichor and broken shards of chitinous shell.

With his first two foes thus distracted, the Dancing Gloam stepped back, his focus now upon the last and smallest horror: a figure scarcely larger than the average human, whose form evoked nothing so much as some twisted mockery of a praying mantis, with each black-barbed limb ending in a grim appendage not unlike a vicious, curved blade. As compared with the other two, there seemed to be a certain higher degree of uncanny awareness and predatory patience about this one's motions; indeed, in a certain unholy fashion, it could almost be described as elegant. There was something especially dreadful in its slow, measured approach—a certain grim intentionality that somehow seemed to say that, if it wanted to, it could move much, much faster. It was just taking its time.

As the mantis-like monstrosity reached the crest of the hill accompanied by the unsightly symphony of its feasting companion below, even Damien looked almost wary, his customarily easygoing, cocky air replaced by a look of grim concentration as he raised his blade once more. Set atop the hill's summit, a backdrop to the battle now taking place below and before them, the two began to circle each other like the predators they were, neither seemingly willing to make the first move.

Osuin | Helena | Petra Darthinian | Abalon Shallows | Faramund | Markus Glorphain

 

[Osuin]

Skies grew darker, and the sound of thunder roared across the battlefield. Osuin continued to fight in the thick of it, bringing his sword swinging down to strike a dismounted foe beside him. The warrior crumpled beneath the force of the strike, bright red blood seeping through the armour from the inflicted wound and forming a growing puddle within the rain-soaked mud he'd fallen. Yet, deep as the wound was, the warrior did not flinch, but rather revelled gleefully in the mud for moments. The odd act spooked his steed, which reared up for a moment before stomping on the head of their foe, finally causing all motion to cease.

Osuin sheathed his sword, blood dripping down the blade. To his surprise, blood also seeped down his gauntlets and greaves. The crimson puddle grew well beyond what a man ought to be able to bleed out. As Osuin turned his attention to the remainder of the battle he saw many other such puddles throughout.

“Corrupting magick must be at play!” Osuin shouted, readying his spear to prepare for a charge. His distraction had served purpose – in the distance, he could spot Faramund returning with the rescued girl on his steed.

Many of the Glorphain's soldiers surrounded them, and all appeared maniacal with blood-thirst. Some displayed direct sign of their derangement, their heads tilted up to drink the blood that poured down from the sky. To twist so many spoke to the power he wielded, and Osuin would not delude himself that the battle before him would be easy.

Nor would he deny that it could not be lost. Such evil could not be allowed to plague the land. By their honour, the Knights of Anathaeum could not allow it.

His forces were forming a charge, and Osuin was prepared to meet it. He bid his steed forward, hooves flinging mud from the craters left as they galloped ahead. Closing in head on with one, Osuin thrust his spear forth with all his might, the spearhead glancing off his foe's armor to plunge beneath his chin. A twist of the spear dislocated his jaw and flung him from the steed, but despite the gruesome wound the man was unphased. He revelled as the last had, until the moment Osuin plunged his spear down again to end his life and the misery the corrupted warrior appeared oblivious to.

There was no time to waste, and Osuin commanded his steed forth to meet the next opponent, his spear brandished and seeking another foe to fell.

Petra Darthinian Abalon Shallows Markus Glorphain Helena Faramund Damien DeMontieaux

 

[Markus Glorphain]

As steel clashed with steel and lightshows shined across the battlefield in defiance of the oppressive magick that flowed through the air and the clouds themselves, the blood rain continued to pour. Black and beady eyes fell upon the tree that fed on the blood that the Warlord had beckoned. Helena's magick was powerful, he could see. The worm wriggled beneath steel, flesh, bone, and perhaps even the depths of his tar-drenched soul. It brushed and invaded and bade him to feast so that it might sustain itself. So that the magick that caused him agony and that turned pain to pleasure could flow even more freely. The Glorphain began to salivate beneath his helm. A mighty knight rode forward with his sword held high and The Warlord reached out to him. A large hand wrapped around the steel protecting his head and pulled him from his horse with minimal effort. Blood, brain, and skull erupted from the shell after a simple squeeze from the Glorph's mighty hands. What had once been in the Knight's cranium became a part of the great blood pools that had formed all around.

As the fighting raged on, the dark skies above seemed to stretch farther and so, did too, the blood rain. The battlefield and the area around it became a hellscape. Blood begot blood and Arethil itself was weeping. The Warlord reveled in it so much that it was almost difficult for him to focus. The Worm whispered the incantations to him and he seemed to speak them as though he were almost in a trance. He rode on his steed toward the great tree Helena had created in the meantime. His cavalry clashed with those of the Knights and he swung his warhammer like a madman. A man possessed. One knight was knocked from his horse. A steed had their head smashed in a moment after.

Slowly, as the Glorphain muttered his vile curse into the air, the Wyld magick as well as the tree seemed to bend and twist. Drawn toward the Worm as though he were meant to swallow it.

_______________________

And surely, the sorcerer's assault found it's purchase.
The worm writhed and wriggled as it did.
Against the cosmos.
Against the walls of their very mind.
So great was it's tantrum that it's children fell upon the space their shared and wriggled and moved closer to the sorcerer.

They wanted him.

They needed to feast.

To liquify.

To swallow.

And the scream from the great worm.

It was the scream of thousands...
​

It was a scream of pleasure that reverberated and tried to embed itself deep within Abalon's psyche. Because when the great parasite turned it's attention back to him, it was a gaze of lust. It wanted to be inside of him. It's children found their way to him. They climbed up staff and fabric and through skin and through any opening that presented itself. The Sorcerer would know how badly they wanted him. How badly they wanted to feel his very lifeforce drain away whilst they grew fatter and happier. In his mind, their faces were plentiful and their hands many. The Great Worm drew ever closer, a megalith of puss and disease that threatened to fall upon him. Even as it's children continued to rain upon him.
​

_____________________
​

As the blood continued to pour, the Mantis-like creature that danced with the Gloam did not go into a frenzy. It's many appendages were swordlike and clanked against the harder portions of the hill. It's mandibles clicked slowly. Like a predator. Almost like it was planning something insidious beneath those many eyes. It could move much faster. And it did, though perhaps not in the way the rogue was expecting. Without warning, it spewed a dust from deep inside of it's bowels. The cloud came quickly and filled the space between them.

If inhaled, it caused nightmarish hallucinations caused paralysis, making it's prey much easier to devour.
​

______________________
​

Violence seemed so far away, even though it was so close.

No one knew, but the moment she'd seen her father being feasted upon by the Warlord's dogs, she'd never left him. Her third eye, the gift of something she could never hope to understand had kept her away from everything else. Her vision of the dreams and the stars and spirits and things she could not explain all faded just so she could be in that moment forever. A tear fell from her forehead. As the good knights did battle with the writhing demons, she saw him... A voice snapped her out of her trance.

'What's your name?"
​

"M-... Mina, sir," she responded. Two of the eyes she possessed were fixed on Syr Faramund, that knight in shining armor. The third watched him, but seemed to be looking past him. Beyond. "Sir, I... My mama... Have you seen my mama?"

They'd killed her. They'd stabbed her and beaten her and slashed her to ribbons. But he could bring her back, right? That's what always happened in the stories. The knights would arrive and make everything better. Everything would return to normal! The village. Her parents. They could fix it all... The words didn't come. From all three of her hazel eyes, she wept. Tears streaming down a soft and ebon face.

Helena Faramund Damien DeMontieaux Osuin

​

​

 

[Abalon Shallows]

Life force spent in puncturing blow, Abalon gripped at his chest as his heartbeat felt distant, arrhythmic at best, a distant erratic knock upon the door of life, not be felt with any assurance that he was truly alive. His throat was dry and the taste of sulphur within his mouth, his lips leaked white vaporous soul matter as he barely reeled in his syphoning of his raw lifespan. His palms shook, he made fists repeatedly with his hands to try and regain sensation, his head pranged with thunderbolts of pain. The attack was meant to lay this thing low, this offensive beast, this insulting abomination, and yet, despite the sacrifice, it continued on, loathing pleasure driving it on to consume the arch mage.

It was enough to set fear firmly into his heart, all actors now consumed by their actions, and Abalon, alone with this worm to face and no speech to rally, no solace from the sound of clashing of steel. This domain of magic was his mastered place that he found himself bested within, by this perverse coiled thing that grew as large as his fear within his eyes.

Eyes wide with shock as Abalon heard the sound, of the perverse pleasure this thing felt at being wounded, at compelling itself onwards towards him, and all manner of all too corporeal sadism and pleasure seeking.
The beast surged on with thousands of itself, all writhing, wriggling mass that reached him all quickly even as the worm loomed with corpulent weight to crush him. This was too much, Abalon thought as dread seized him and made his resolve shudder away from him as if it were nothing but an apparition before a holy symbol. Nothing had been so momentous and singularly driven to crush him before, he had faced countless deathly things, but this was a thing of carnal pleasures, a thing of flesh, a thing that hungered and wished to grow fat off his lifeforce. And worse.

Leaping up at his floating disc the worms set their suckers upon the arcane construction and ebbed away what magic propelled it. Spinning dangerously, Abalon went to press a hand to the disc to stabilise it, but found a handful of the worms snatching at his palm digits and leeching the lifeforce from his soul in the process. He felt the acid of their maws upon him, smoke rising from their corrosive touch. He recoiled and rebuffed the worms with a hand of black fire, but the leeches even as they were blasted away were countless in their approach. And approach and invade his space they did.

Shifting en mass, they worked their way up leg and robe and hand and neck, purchasing with gross embrace as Abalon vainly attempted to blast them away with black fire born of deathly magic. The disc began to kilter away as it careened through the air, and with an explosion of purple energies, it crashed into the ground, sending Abalon hurtling to the firmament with it his robes awash with purple crackling light as the wrathful energies worked their damage. The worms clutched to him, and surged after his propulsion.

He tried to rise to his feet, but the worms weighted him down, leeching away at his magic and will to fight. It bled him as quick as any knife across the throat. He turned upon his back, the shifting mass of worms surging onwards in pulses, clutching and biting with agony at him as the worm massive was upon him.

Abalon's mind of tactical advantage was all gone now as the worms began to wriggle not upon his flesh, but penetrating it, writhing within his skin, crawling deep in the perverse desecration of the flesh.

His mind was broken by such a sensation, consumed with one instinct.

Survive.

“Stasis...of...death,” Abalon choked out and snapped his fingers as worms clutched at his face, and consumed his senses with darkness. Swirling black miniature comets arced around the arch mage, cocooning him and the worms in a state of stasis, the final resort of one consumed by the overwhelming weight of dread things. The worms swarming him stopped moving, half worked into him, caught by the proximity of the flesh, Abalon stopped moving, all consumed in the petrifying energy that Abalon summoned.

Within the stasis, he was as near to death as one could possibly risk, a homeostasis that protecting him as a shield, containing his soul from being leached entire by the worms. It left his body petrified, to be salved by life magic by someone else more worthy for the fight's tasks. Abalon's consciousness ebbed away into the murky black of the spell's effect, to be roused by another who might save him, or, might consider him a plaything to be broken entire.

 

[Faramund]

Faramund didn't return to the village. With the situation up in the air, and his comrades locked in heated battle, he could not risk it. Not with the child. 'Mina, was it?' Looking down, the knight smiled as he ran his horse through the woodlands, away from the village and the horrors unfolding there. 'A good name. Was it your mother that gave it to you?' He did not dare answer her question... for there was no answer he could give that would calm her wounded soul.

Particularly since her mother was likely dead already. The Glorphain was not known for his mercy, after all. The cold-blooded bastard!

'Yes,' the child squeaked up at him, her third eye closed and covered by a length of fabric Fara had hacked from his cloak. 'It was my Grand-Mama's name. I-... I never met her.' Mira went quiet. Perhaps her mind was returning to the village. To the bloody image of her murdered mother, butchered and staked to the wall of a house that had once been hers. 'Do you have a mother?' She asked suddenly, tilting her head back to look up at him with red-rimmed eyes.

Faramund laughed despite himself. 'We're all born with mothers, friend Mira,' he replied, grinning. 'I seem to have misplaced mine somewhere along the way.' He smiled to cover the fact he could no longer remember her face. 'You have any other family 'round these parts?' He queried, checking over his shoulder every now and then to make sure they weren't being pursued. He couldn't see anyone coming, but that wasn't to say they weren't.

Driving his horse into the muddy waters of a nearby river, Faramund turned north. If they wanted to pick up his trail, they would have to work for it.

'Mama said I have cousins up near Bitey-... Bit-Bitterstream.' Mira's voice was small against the crash of water and rock. 'We would always go, go and meet them for the harvest festival.' Mira smiled at her own memories, and Faramund smiled encouragingly back. 'Then that's where we shall go,' he said, hugging the child close.

'To Bitterstream.'

----- ​

Night fell before they had made it halfway. Taking shelter in the ruin of a castle keep, Faramund went about securing the surroundings whilst Mira, tucked up tight in his cloak, fell asleep by the light of a crackling fire. Exhausted from a day on the road himself, Faramund did his best to keep watch. Despite not seeing anyone on the road all day, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Very wrong.

'Where are you?' he asked the silently twinkling stars, looking up to where they kept watch over all of Arethil's lands. When they gave him no answer, Faramund sighed, disappointed. 'I'm right here.' A gravelly male voice spoke up from behind him, so close his breath brushed the back of Fara's neck.

Spinning, his sabre half-drawn, the knight's mind went blank. Eyes, usually so full of life and light, darkened, until they were as black as pitch.

Putting its blade to rest, the Doppler nodded in recognition as the Sightless Seer stepped forth from the shadows, like an old friend pulling a prank. 'About time you got here,' the doppler said, bowing as the Seer looked it up and down. Smiling enigmatically, the Seer said, 'We would have been here sooner, if not for that nasty bit of business going on down in Dawndale.'

He grinned, revealing yellowed teeth filed to points. 'Is the girl inside?'

'Yes, she is. Fast asleep and dreaming of home.' The two shared a chuckle. Neither was genuine. 'Would be rude of you to wake her,' Faramund -or the creature that had taken his place- continued, amusing The Seer with his words. 'Agreed.' Strolling casually into the keep, the blind mage began to utter a spell. 'To help her sleep,' he explained after the fact. The Doppler nodded.

It didn't care, really. Its job was done now. All that remained was the handoff.

'Our Lord sends His greetings, by the way,' smiled The Seer, 'and He sends His gratitude! Well done!' Turning its cold gaze upon the mage, "Faramund" nodded. He didn't particularly care about that either, though, there was something It managed to spare a thought for.

'What of the Order? What of the Captain?' It asked, noting how the child's breathing had grown deeper in the moments leading up to her doom. 'Do they yet live?'

'Unfortunately, yes.' The Seer sighed, betraying some form of genuine emotion that The Doppler failed to seize on. 'But that's where you come in, is it not?' Smiling, The Seer gestured to the two guards lingering in the shadows. 'Take the child,' he instructed, 'but do not harm her! The Everwatcher wants his prize... unspoiled.'

Pulling the doppler aside, he said, 'Now, I suppose it's time you returned to them, yes?' Inclining his head, the pair walked outside. The stars still shone bright and unblinking overhead, like millions upon millions of eyes, all aimed at the two of them and the girl whose fate they both shared a vested interest in.

As did the Everwatcher, and his most loyal of followers.

'Be seeing you!' The Seer smiled as he clicked his fingers, summoning a horse as black as midnight to his side. Burning red orbs watched the doppler as the Seer mounted up, turned one last time towards It. 'And remember: He has his eye on you, always!' And with that, they were gone.

So, too, was any hope of seeing the child ever again.

Helena Markus Glorphain Petra Darthinian Osuin Abalon Shallows Damien DeMontieaux

 

[Helena]

Dark words rode upon dark winds. Death dealt at every turn, and beyond the waking realm.

She would steel herself against it. Her armor, with its many runes, burned bright. Orichalcum plate, inlaid with willowsteel. A suit as strong as the finest cortossi steel. With a draw of magicks the likes of which the wisest wizard's wand did pull.


Dawn's fire still burned across her vambrace. Drank in by the bands of sigils. The myriad scripts of timeless runes their Masters of the Forge, Syrs Alduin and Rulgak did scribe. Letters, symbols, prayers and cants. Legends.

Strings of power. Threads of fate. Her armor was a library unto itself. Her magick, her will, the conduit through which the vast well of knowledge held there in did spark to life. Did weave in to this mortal plane.

No vile Worm would make that different.

Magick. Most ancient. Steamed and hissed and swirled about Helena, Captain of Dawn. A glaive chopped down toward her. Her hand flared out. Fingers spread. A shield of golden light appeared, made manifest to catch the downward cleave. Her horse turned about, its hooves kicked hard at the villain. His chestplate cracked as he was knocked back and into another.

Grankali's shoes glowed white, the earth beneath her trotting hooves sizzled as her hind quarters bared their weight.

Helena turned her steed about, brought her sword to stab down in a gap there in the armor of one of the Worm's men. It stopped against chainmail, but she fed it her fire. She gave it the Dawn's light as she grunt and jammed down her weight once more. A lance of white flame bolted from the point of Zenith's blade. It seared its way through the man. His flesh turned to fire.

The Terror Worm, her eyes caught glimpse of his horrid shape across the throngs. Across the spellfire and red lightning. The shimmers of magick shields, and rain of star-fire.

"OSUIN!" She bellowed out with a wolf's howl. "TO ME!" She roared, and set her sites upon the Glorphain.

Though her mind felt afire, her limbs ached, her core a furnace that burned so hot she could feel it eat away at her. Slow. The fire asked for more. Slow. The flame would take as she bade it lend her strength. She would rid the world of that abomination.

Grankali trumpeted her pride, and the great mare broke forward through the dying men.

A spear jut out to stop the Captain's charge. A shield of light caught its path. She raised her sword high once more. The rain of black blood stained its edge. Hissed and popped as it burned away against the heated metal. The runes along its glowed gold-then-white. Zenith, that blade forged from willow-steel, whose hilt was made from the Eldyr's bark, burned true through the storm of blood and darkness.

Her eyes fixed on the Worm. She snarled behind the steel of her helm.

Down came the blade. A thing that shimmered and blurred, as if the sun itself had been trapped within its road.


How her figure burned. How the wisps of steaming blood hazed from her gallant frame. Proud horns of her helm pointed. Ever forward. Ever forward. She could feel Grankali break free. Crunching foe underhoof. Mass bulling over men who thought themselves strong. Helena could feel her steed build its charge as its hooves churned the earth beneath its weight.

She roared, and thrust the sun-formed-blade at the very evil that brought them here this day.

A lance of light. A point of fire, beamed out to run the Glorphain through. Helena, and all her wrath behind it.

---

Within the Realm of Death, where the Pursuant faces the Worm

Before the worm and its proginey, there burned a golden light. A being most ancient. Rival to the nemesis.

"Pretender," its voice reverberated. And all those worms that clung and wriggled and ate at Abalon Shallows turned to golden flame. "Devourer," the voice came like the thousand-form tongues of a great flame. "You face me now,"

So came the soul of Artorias, Knight Commander, to aid brave Shallows.

---

Markus Glorphain Petra Darthinian Osuin Damien DeMontieaux Abalon Shallows

 

[Petra Darthinian]

The hammer came out of nowhere.

One moment, she was pulling her sword from the throat of a man mid-scream. And the next, she was thrown from her saddle, the sickening crunch of her horse's shoulder carrying the mare's screams to the ground where it writhed in agony.

Petra's sword had been knocked from her hand and she landed heavily in the mud, her shoulder throbbing in pain as she looked up through drenched curls to see the giant looming figure of a man clad in black armor adorned with spikes and jagged edges, his foot on the crushed neck of her now dead horse. Dark magic emanated from him in waves.

Fear jolted through her at the sight, and she tried to scramble to her feet, but slipped once more and went down again. The man lept forward, swinging his hammer down, but the elf rolled from the whistling air, the weapon slamming instead into the mud by her head with a deafening thud. Their eyes met for a moment, and disjointedly, she noted that for a man so seduced by evil, he was beautiful. Eyes as blue as a new Spring sky. It seemed a cruel irony that the outside did not reflect what was within. That death would come in a beautiful mask.

He leaned down and snarled at her and she answered by raking her black claws across his face. He reared back and clutched at his torn beauty with both hands, profanities flying from his shredded lips. Petra lept up in the next moment and seized his abandoned hammer, ignoring the blood she felt congealed on the grip. Who's had it been? And what was left of them?

The man's face contorted in rage as he dropped his hands, his remaining good eye fixed on Petra with a feral intensity. Without a word, he charged forward, his movements swift with deadly intent. She swung the hammer with all her might, aiming for the man's ribcage. The weapon made a sickening crunch as it connected with his flesh, perverse in its parallel to her dead mount; but to Petra's horror, he took the hit with a heaving breath and rallied, his hand snatching the shaft of the hammer in one hand and before she could react, he had grabbed her by the neck with the other and lifted her high, his fingers digging into her flesh like a vice and clamping down on her windpipe.

She dropped the hammer they shared and began to claw uselessly at his vambraces, her legs kicked at his thighs, and her lungs burned for air. Her vision started to blur, the edges darkening, and her ears began to ring with the sound of her own gasping breaths. The world started to spin around her, and her thoughts became muddled, a jumble of fear and desperation. Her body convulsed, trying to break free from his grip, but he was too strong, too powerful and the battle had been tiring. The blood pounding harder in her ears, her heart beating a frantic tattoo against her ribs. And for a moment, Petra's eyes met the man's, and she saw the triumph in his gaze, the sick pleasure he took in her suffering.

But within the songweaver was an unrelenting storm. And she would not yield to lesser men.

As her world began to fade to black, with a last burst of energy, she reached deep within herself and called forth the lightning that she had felt ashamed of using since her spar with Valborast. The power of the path of Flame.

With a defiant scream that used the last of her air, she grabbed onto his forearms and focused all her energy, sending lightning crackling down her arms and surging into the man's body with a vengeance.

The man screamed in agony as her rage coursed through him, but still, he refused to let go of Petra. The two of them were locked in a deadly struggle, screaming at each other, demanding the other to bend to their will.

And just when she could feel herself slipping away, he released her, collapsing to the ground in a smoking heap while she fell to her knees, gasping for air and watching him writhe in agony before his twisted soul left this world for the next.

Her body trembled with exhaustion and adrenaline as she struggled to stand and looked up to witness the disheartening truth that the tides had turned against them. The enemy soldiers had pushed forward, and her fellow Knights were becoming outnumbered.

But just as despair threatened to seep into her bones, a deafening roar shattered the air.

Petra's heart leaped in her chest as she recognized the sounds of her wrathful dragon.

She looked up just in time to see him dive down from the stormy sky above with a deafening sound of thunder at his heels. His scales glittered like jewels in the lightning that surrounded him. For this is what it truly meant to have beauty in death.

Norvyk's wings beat furiously as he descended, his body surrounded by arcs of electricity, the winds dancing around him at his bidding. His jaws opened wide, and he unleashed a sonorous high-pitched torrent of lightning breath that rained down on the enemy lines at the rear of the Glorphain's forces, engulfing them in a fury of crackling energy. Soldiers screamed as they were electrocuted, their bodies convulsing in spasms. The very air became charged with the unmistakable scent of burnt ozone, and the hair on her arms stood on end.

Norvyk soared over the enemy's ranks, bolts of lightning erupted from him, striking the enemy's line with deadly precision. His mighty wings buffeted the back lines of the men, sending them flying like ragdolls. Mere play things against his might. He was a force of nature, his rage palpable as he unleashed himself on the battlefield, leaving the bodies of the fallen soldiers twisted and contorted, their limbs frozen in grotesque positions, their flesh blackened and smoking.

His presence alone seemed to ignite a spark within her, rekindling her hope and fortitude to fight on.

With renewed energy, she grabbed her newly won hammer and fed it her anger, the weapon crackling in answer with the same lightning that had saved her life just moments before. And with ferocity in her heart, Petra rejoined the battle, her golden eyes glowing with vengeful fire.

Determined to follow Norvyk's lead and carve a path of destruction of her own.


Helena Abalon Shallows Faramund Markus Glorphain Osuin Damien DeMontieaux

 

[Osuin]

Locked in continued battle with countless opponents, Osuin held them back by repeated thrusts of his spear while his steed backpedaled step by step. The Glorphain’s soldiers were tireless and merciless in their pursuit, but Osuin was deft with his weapon. His spear struck their armour and shields, bouncing off before a strike glanced off a breastplate to skewer the head of an assailant from the bottom of his jaw. A wing of the spear got caught within, entrapping the spear within its home of wounded flesh until he pried it free with a stiff boot to his chest, and the sickening sound of torn flesh. The horror of the wound was entirely lost on the dying soldier, who collapsed onto his back with a sickening stare that seemed to bore into Osuin’s soul.

He bled out like a mortal, and grinned like a devil. Osuin could not shake it. He’d seen enough slain by now and had never bore witness to reactions so revolting. Yet without time to dwell on it he thrust his spear forth again, clashing with one who had stepped forward to take the place of their fallen comrade. The tip bounced off his buckler before the second thrust slammed into his eye and pierced the brain of his foe. Thankfully, death came quickly, and the defeated soldier gave only a blank look once his lifeless body hit the bloodied mud they fought upon.

"OSUIN! TO ME!" He heard Helena cry out, immediately turning to her direction. He did not know the cause for her call yet made immediate headway towards here. Spurring his steed to take him forward, he galloped over the bodies of those he’d slain on his way to close the distance with the Knight Captain. In short time, he saw the plight of Shallows, and understood what must be done.

The battle must be taken to the Glorphain.

Osuin joined Helena her in a charge towards their foe, the hooves of his steed beating atop the blood-muddied soil. His spear remained brandished in front of him, the blood of his fallen foes still staining the end of the shaft. The way forward was not quite clear, but Osuin would make it so. A plunge of his spear struck an intercepting soldier with enough force to knock him off his steed. The warrior fell, but did not hit the ground – his ankle remained stuck in the stirrup, and his weapon hand remained free to swing at the legs of the horse he rode.

The strike found no purchase, for the action spooked his steed. With a whinny and raised forelegs, he bucked back so far that Osuin was tossed from his saddle. Not wishing to end up caught in the same position as his foe, he kicked himself free from the stirrups and hit the ground shoulder-first with a thud with his spear landing not far from him. He scrambled to his feet and ran to his spear, but his foe was too far away by the time he could attack. Both horses ran wild until his opponent’s steed caught him in the head with its hind leg. Osuin could not see the wound from beneath the man’s helmet, but the sudden lifelessness of the body dragged behind told him enough.

Bracing his spear, Osuin remained on foot for the moment. He called out to his horse and immediately continued following behind Helena on foot. He had to support her charge, and remained ready to accost any of the Glorphain’s forces that sought to intervene.

Markus Glorphain Helena Petra Darthinian Abalon Shallows Faramund Damien DeMontieaux

 

[Markus Glorphain]

Hands fueled with corruption of a being most foul were stained with blood.
They had crushed bone and filled his nerves with something unholy.
Something that brought fire to his loins.
And the rain.
The rain tasted so sweet against his thin lips.

Their flesh was succulent on his tongue...
​

The lance struck true despite his power. The Glorphain cried out despite how the pain excited him. Despite how his loins were soiled as the worm wriggled between his organs and desired more from him. What more would it ask of him? His life? His soul that had left him so very long ago? The Warlord's teeth ground together. And though the lance had penetrated his right shoulder through his thick armor, his left hand reached to grab a hold of Helena's weapon and twisted, aiming to use his superior strength to pull her from her steed. Despite the pain that surged through him, he was fueled. Even as he bled from his wound that might have made men incapable of battle, he smiled a sadistic smile. He tossed his bull helm to the side and clutched his hammer tight. He was prepared to crush Helena's skull with it or at the very least continue the fight.

And then the thunder came...

His smile faded into a scowl as the knight's dragon wreaked havoc upon his men. Lightning rained from the sky along with the blood that fell from black clouds. Were it not for the world burning about them, any reminder of the sun might have been struck away from every combatant's memory. It was from that darkness that he drew his strength. Chainmail began to pop and the thick steel that protected his massive hide began to expand until it seemed to melt away from his form. His skin and his flesh, smelling and putrid began to stretch like a virus. The Warlord that was once eight feet had grown to more than twice his size. His muscles and belly and fat had grown with him and he stood as a naked giant among his men and among his foes. The voice that came from him was one of sorrow and pleasure and pain and malice.

He spoke in a language unlike any other this world knew. Those who heard it felt pain to their very core and yet his voice was aimed at the dragon, looking to bring it low with it's frequency.
​

______________________

Light.
Everlasting and unbearable Light.

That worm who's voice was the will of thousands screamed, opening it's great maw to it's ancient foe. The flesh within was of limitless suffering faces. Souls that were devoured or tied to this being that fed on the insecurities and perversions of all.

I was wondering when I might see you again, dragon.
Great wyrm. My greatest foe...

You have saved this one for now. But you cannot protect your children forever.
I am undeniable and you are limited. Remember, old friend...

Remember...

The space in that ethereal realm that once held the Worm was then empty. The Gold Dragon had won this day...
​

 

[Helena]

A hand, monstrous and large, knocked into her. Smashed against the plate of her ancient armor. Helena shout. The air forced out of her. The blow threw her to the ground and she landed against the earth with a hard clatter and crunch.

She grit her teeth. Jaw set firm and hard as her mind made sense of the tumult. The rain. The smell of iron. All of it threatened to overwhelm.

The ley of her armor, the runes, ran hot with wisps of steam that curled from her plated form. Seals of life, script of power, glyphs of flame. All burned white, green, and red. She made to move. A grunt. A roar as her strength saw her lifted from the ground. Sword still in hand as she rose.

Met with the mass of the changed Glorphain. The unrelenting girth. Visceral in its putridity. How it poured over itself. How it expanded in mass. Growth, unbridled. Unhinged. Mad.

It slammed against her. Her heels sloughed through the muck as she braced against it and was forced back. Her relic armor groaned. Plate dented against her chest as her hands angled the blade, Zenith, for a cut. Breath harder to draw in. She was wrathful and furious as the Glorphain's mass swelled about her like a rising tide.

A sound erupted from the young Captain's throat. Fury and wrath turned to heated shout, as the Wormeater turned its gaze up to the sky, and sang its horrid song to the heavens.

"I AM YOUR FOE, ROTMONGER!"

Her armor ablaze with light, her hands strong about the grip of her sword. Helena ripped forth with all she had. Put forth the fire of her soul in a blazing cut.

Flame, turned molten edge across her blade, dared to devour the catacomb of flesh the Glorphain tried to entomb her in as she slashed forward. A second, and a third cut would follow, if her arms and legs had the strength to carry through her assault.

---

The Gold Dragon felt no joy come from this victory. For its ancient foe was treacherous and cunning. And its greed knew no end.

Still, his gaze turned to the brave knight that dared face the worm within the realm of death, and with its eyes like sunfire, Artorias saw tendrils of corruption burned away from Abalon's form.

Only time would tell if the Pursuant of Death would be free of the Worm's mark.

 

[Abalon Shallows]

The Dark of Death abated with golden light born from spectral hallmark of the Order, with thousand ray hope did the sun shine again upon the Pursuant's soul. The cocoon that protected him from foe now relinquishing in their attempt to feed, his need to protect himself absconded with threat's presence. He rose, in tatters of confidence that slowly grew roused from the acceptance of still death to the battlefield still in full measure, in full force of violence and brutal execution of what must be done.

Gripping staff with firm hand, he blinked away the dark of his own creation and winced at the brilliance of the dragon light, such stark contrast to his fate that had roused him from his self preservation. Now was the time to fight again. What despair had been in his heart melted with rapidity, what magic was his to command trailed about his feet and hands as he considered how best to act. So gathered, he set to work, his presence no longer within the spectral arcane realm, but the very mortal one where blade met blade and perishment of the flesh was chief concern.

First, a disc to fly. Then, more magic to protect his comrades.

None too late.

Another volley of arrows swarmed out from springing bowstring of the enemy. A quick crack of staff against the blackened disc that was now lifting Abalon to and up to the fore, and tendrils of shadow black did squat away a great cloud that would have pinned his comrades.

Another blast of magic from enemy mage, Abalon with digits raised and then pointed down in command did redirect the gout of vomitus green energy. Sent into the soil, to linger and fester without mortal to claim as feed.

So did it go on as Abalon acted as counter to the foul magics that were displayed in the field, the pursuant performing with all renewed confidence his command and prevention of Death itself, in base form of blade and arrow, in sophisticated magic of the Dark and Corrupt, so were these things in multitude rebuffed by Abalon's wit to act as arcane subformation with his comrades.

We shall not fall so easily again!

It was to mightier heroes to carry the day. He would prevent disaster, for there was much of it upon the wings, he would return the dragon's visage to others, if in more blackened forms of his own power.

Markus Glorphain Helena Petra Darthinian Osuin Faramund Damien DeMontieaux

 

[Petra Darthinian]

And then the thunder came...

His smile faded into a scowl as the knight's dragon wreaked havoc upon his men. Lightning rained from the sky along with the blood that fell from black clouds. Were it not for the world burning about them, any reminder of the sun might have been struck away from every combatant's memory. It was from that darkness that he drew his strength. Chainmail began to pop and the thick steel that protected his massive hide began to expand until it seemed to melt away from his form. His skin and his flesh, smelling and putrid began to stretch like a virus. The Warlord that was once eight feet had grown to more than twice his size. His muscles and belly and fat had grown with him and he stood as a naked giant among his men and among his foes. The voice that came from him was one of sorrow and pleasure and pain and malice.

He spoke in a language unlike any other this world knew. Those who heard it felt pain to their very core and yet his voice was aimed at the dragon, looking to bring it low with it's frequency.

The great red Wormeater had risen once again, but what an unworthy bearer it had to bore. Such perverted hubris would be this army's ruin.

Its corruption stained the wind and choked the great breath in Norvyk's lungs as the unmade worm of a man, who now grew into a great grotesque golem, tried to weave dark magic into his blood. The words it spoke were like slivers of glass as they needled beneath his scales. Ripping snarls of pain from between the dragon's fangs. The assailing magic sought to stutter the strong beating of his wings. To clip him and leave him aground, where the enemy thought him vulnerable.

Struggling to stay aloft with the claws of alien spellwork dragging him down, Norvyk searched for his own rider and found her to be holding her own, notable by the arcs of lightning that rolled from her hammer, but making no ground all the same in the face of an enemy that replaced with two for every one struck down into an early grave. This battle was designed to wear them down, to whittle their people into something that would break.

But there, amongst the filth and the writhing limbs of dying men surrounding the golem, did the storm dragon witness the bright undulating blossom of runic magic fighting against the swallowing walls of flesh, refusing to bend. Flashes of ravenous screaming wolves sheathed in light danced across his sight beyond sight and Norvyk peered through the magic to witness Helena in wrathful defiance, standing one amongst the many until her Knights could claw their way to her side.

So with a sonorous cry, the dragon tucked his wings and chased the wind in a sharp dive before corruption could render him from the sky.

With a sword-shaking flourish, the storm dragon landed behind the Captain of the Dawn, his tail sweeping the enemies behind them, their blood blackening his emerald scales. Norvyk reared his great spiral-crowned head and roared his challenge back into the face of this twisted flesh monster they now faced. For he would be at Helena's back, forming a great serpentine wall for any that would try and strike her down. The air once again charging into a frenetic nest of lightning serpents around him, readying to strike at foe and prey.

Abalon Shallows Helena Faramund Markus Glorphain Osuin Damien DeMontieaux

 

[Osuin]

Osuin held his spear at the ready, ready to meet the chaos of combat that continued around him, and he soon found another to battle with. One of the Glorphain’s forces made a charge towards the knight, brandishing his own spear as he sprinted forth. Osuin tensed his grip on his weapon and began to make a counter thrust, though he neither committed to nor completed the attack. The motion he made was merely a feint, and it served its purpose in causing his opponent to sidestep in response. Osuin too, made a sideward step in the same direction to avoid his attack before he thrust his spear into his current foe’s chest. The point pierced steel and slipped between ribs – a deft twisting swing by Osuin sent his mortally wounded opponent tumbling, but it did not cease the violence that boiled within. Blood gushing from his chest to join that which pooled on the ground, the injured warrior scrambled back to his feet, alongside another who had joined him.

He thrust his spear again, taking careful aim to meet the injured one’s neck with the point with an injury catastrophic enough to cause his immediate collapse. But as he retracted his weapon, the new arrival grasped it in a brief struggle that Osuin ended by yanking back on the contested polearm with all his might and slamming the foe who held it with the bulk of his steel plated shoulder. Though stunned, his grasp did not falter – Osuin could not shake him loose from the weapon. Instead, he continued to hold onto it as well with a single hand, while he reached for and drew his arming sword from his hip.

A deft motion nearly amputated the arm of his opponent, who displayed no signs of pain or fear. With a made in hand, he flung himself forward to swing at Osuin with his mace, but he only found the point of the knight’s sword when Osuin gave a might thrust to end both the attack and the life of the one who made it.

With both threats ended, Osuin continued forth in the Glorphain’s direction. Progress through the hordes was slow without his steed to ride though them, though he remained unfettered. He could see that Helena was already there, locked in battle with the one who had beset this evil upon him. This threat needed and end.

No effort was made to retrieve his spear, the battle had grown too thick for such a weapon to be suitable. With arming sword and round shield, Osuin continued his charge into the fray, drawing ever closer to Helena and the battle she waged. Now within shouting distance, though there still remained many more to fight through. By might and by sword, he remained ready to cut them down as he had the others.

Markus Glorphain Helena Abalon Shallows Petra Darthinian

 

[Markus Glorphain]

When light cut his bulbous form, the rain became black.
Like marrow.
Like the tar on the Glorphain's filthy soul.
​

His eyes had turned white and dead and his cut stretched from shoulder to chest. No blood came from his sundered form, but puss and oil as black as the rain that fell around them. The top half of his body fell to one side and the bottom half stood tall. Soon even that grotesque form was distorted. The air and the black rain and the Glorphain's knights seem to melt into the tapestry of madness. The Worm slinked from the muck of Glorphain's body. Slender and supple. Iridescent and reflecting the corrupt light that emanated from it and seemed to make the world around it melt. It spoke to them a language of rage. A language that left a blotch on one's being to even hear it.
​

It promised them annihilation.
To eat their rotting, weeping souls in hell.
​

It opened it's maw and a red star appeared at it's center. It stole the light from their skin and their swords and the sun beyond the clouds. The star burned brightly and it was as if the rolling hills had turned into a dark room with the burning light and the red eyes that served the Worm. Before long the star burst into a beam that shredded through all it touched. A projection of hate and malice meant to bring an end to his foes so that the Worm might fight another day...​

 

[Helena]

The sun fire edge of her weapon cleaved through, fueled by dragon's fury and all the desperation that came with the will to survive. Too much still left to live for. Too much still left to do. She would not die here. She would not fall to this putrid pustule. Overgrown and over confident to the point of popping.

As the roar of magick crashed between her ears, she felt the flow of of her weapon come through, arms and legs twist to bring the burning blade back to guard as its wicked tongue ate at the air, loud and wrathful as they crackled and hissed. Golden, white, green and blue, the many colored flames danced upon the runeborne edge of Zenith.

Come the worm. Wicked and wriggling in its pitiful weakness. That frailty in new itself to have so well, that bore such vileness in the pit where there was no heart.

Helena stood ready for that too. Dawned in her armor of ancients, she readied as the whispers of hate tickled her mind. The malice most foul, lapped its tongue in her ear. She but grit her teeth. But held strong her weapon.

She was no stranger to hate. No pure soul without malice. So when the worm opened its mouth and drank in all the illusion of light their eyes did see, turned it to baleful red star, she carried within her a prism. Hard as diamond, and hewn by the hands of all who had came before her. Masters, Captains, and Commander.

Before the red beam, she stood with all at her back. She could not see them. Could not see a thing, save the red line of peeling hate. But she felt them through the earth beneath her feet. Through the bonds they had forged within the fires of fate. She shout. Hot with fury as she turned her blade, and stabbed it down into the earth.

The beam would be met with a shield. Golden and resplendent. Woven with strands of diamond silk. And through the earth, deep, bountiful and resilient beyond any measure of mortal who played at god, the true mother would give her strength. Would help her find the strength of those about her to deflect the worm's last gambit.