Completed The Despoiling of Alliria

THE TREELINE


Like anyone with a sharp business acumen and staggering attention to detail, Visha read precisely none of the contract.

"Pfft! Soul...smoul! Look, dummy...all I have to do...is never die!" Visha coughed up blood everywhere. "See? Easy! Now watch!"

Visha reached with the only hand she had left and grabbed the quill. Shifting her body, she pressed the tip of the quill to the contract.

"Great Maho..."

She cackled low and maniacally.

"...I promised I would suck less...ha HA!"

And she signed her name.

Galen
 
BIG BOOTY DOWN, WE HAVE A BIG BOOTY DOWN
(Somewhere near the crashed Lyra)
Black fire swept out and the smell of burnt flesh, doubled with the smell of rust and rot, filled the kobold's snout. The river of muscle and bone beneath him snapped and surged, and the whole world went tilt and whirl as the lady dragon veered sharply off course.

Arko yelped. A small and tiny sound lost in all the roar and bluster and senselessness, and his little legs and his tiny claws squeezed and dug and did their damndest to stay in the saddle, as he clutched his crossbow tightly to his chest.

A hard crash. His small body flung from his seat and he yowled loud and with pain as his minuscule frame bounced and rolled and tumbled across the despoiled earth. All the while his grubby clutches held tight to his weapon. There was a stillness. The sound in his ear muffled. His eyes cracked open and he saw the great pillar of black fire, reach up to the heavens like some unholy tree. A whimper escaped his scaly lips, and he could feel a tremble in his knees, and a shake in his hands. All the more when he heard the voices chant.

Was that the name of their dark god? Their general? Vardan.

Pain spread its raw red hands across the little kobolds frame. Dug its nails into his muscles as he tried to move. Tried to get back up from the charred earth. He felt the earth shake with heavy footfalls. Saw a large ork rush toward him. A massive silver tail bat him away with a thwack and crunch, and the air above Arko swept up his tattered blue cloak. His wide eyes blinked. He meeped with his dry and raspy voice, and he saw Lyra whip back up.

She asked if they were ok.

"Yes, yes, I's ok," Arko said as he checked himself over "Yeeeh-Uncle? You ok? Eeeah." Mind palace. Remember the mind palace. Remember the Loch.

In a blink, the little dragon-folk was like a shimmer of distant water. Light bounced across his surface, but for a moment, then he was gone. His form, armor and all, was near-invisible. But a blur of light bent and became distorted. As if his body were made water itself. It was not. But no one else needed to know that.

Cloaked, he scanned the battle field for his trusty crossbow, found the silver weapon laying in the near-distance. He scrabbled toward it, as others rushed around him and shambled. Toward the dragon. Away from the fire. Who the hell actually knew. He made it to his weapon and took it up into his clutches. Nearby there was a skeleton man. Hunched over, boney hands in the dirt. Was he crying? Could skeleton's cry?

He looked harmless enough.

Arko swiveled his head, saw a big long piece of metal swinging about, hard edge catching the light where the gore didn't stain thick enough, and a very angry bald man swinging it about. Looked like he was running at someone. Arko traced a line forward and saw the two big boys wrestling in the muck. Then he looked back at the not as big bald boy with the biggest sword. Would he kill both with his downswing?

Determined. Arko, still invisible, found a good perch for his weapon among the piles of corpses, readied his crossbow, aimed at the bald man with the big sword. Click.

A bolt streaked down range, aimed to catch the bloody swordsman in the leg.

Click. The clockwork machine-work geared and clicked, pulled and snapped out another bolt aimed dead at his center. No magic. Just heavy headed crossbow bolts.

Charlemagne
Lyra
Meepo
Vardan
 
The tendril would lash towards the ranks of defenders at the earthen walls and the shields would go up. Holy wards would flash and strain, buckling beneath the godlessness that assaulted them. Some Clerics would die from the strain, but they would be relieved by fresh mages who had acted on dispelling lengths of tendril, causing it to writhe before redirecting its rage towards the defenders on the wall.

At some parts the wards had caved completely and the Defenders there had all but dissolved to ash, but the earthen wall, though heavily damaged, continued to stand. The Paladins that had moved to back, seemingly unscathed by the maelstrom.

Their respite would be short-lived as the loss of infantryman once more required them to step into the brink between life for the civilians and the horde that assaulted the walls.

Be'senaar's blade glanced along the back of Khurash as the orc dove forward, impacting with him in a tackle. It was a surprise to be sure, but there was no panic in the Paladins eyes, no worry. The gods would protect him as they always did.

As the Orc tackled, his knee lifted up between them. A distance. A minor control. Now in the blood soaked dirt, the Paladin could hear a warning from the gods. Danger. The cowards decided they needed to double up on him. No matter.

Using his knee as the leverage, he would try to kick Khurash upwards, into the path of the blade, holding him there until the final second.

Then Khurash would feel something strange. He would drop several inches into the dirt as the Paladin he had been fighting disappeared. No longer held in place or up.

Be'senaar would flicker, four feet away as he recovered to his feet, going from intangible to tangible. It was a strain on his body, but the strain to the people was more than his own discomfort. With Charlemagne aiming for the neck, his blade would arc for Khurash's spine, taking advantage of the repositioning.
 
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The Main Assault
Defending the Outer Wall


The drill of air burrowed its way into the defenses of the orc shamans and slammed into their center with howling winds carrying the force of hurricanes. The tusked beasts scattered like ninepins as the defenses of the shamans blew apart, and the barrage of fire began to crash deep amongst the ranks of the raiders instead of merely hitting their front lines. It was like firing an arrow into one of the weak spots of a glacier full of cracks, causing the entire structure to shatter into its disparate pieces with minimal effort. The column undulated and twisted in mid-air, almost as if it were alive, and Ignisa wiped a trickle of sweat off from her forehead as she surveyed the hole in the enemy's defenses.

"My Lady Aravell. My Lord has sent me and my men here to aid and support you. What would you command of us?"

Ignisa blinked and turned around to see a small company of armed men, all bearing the same insignia, at the ready. Her mind drew a blank for an instant, and then she remembered - this was the crest of House Lindwell, whose head, Lord Artur Lindwell, was among the forefront of those amongst the nobility and merchant houses to clamor for more favourable trade deals from the Tarnossë, which included exclusive rights to (in House Lindwell's case) the silk fabrics spun from silkworms amongs the coastal trees of Tarnossë Pheriel. Silk that Ignisa herself currently worse, in vibrant and dangerous shades of red and orange that well reflected the burning lights of the fireballs that soared over their heads, crashing down upon the raiders and preventing them from reaching the wall in great numbers.

There was a whistle of arrows, and Aorion moved seamlessly to protect her, his hand snapping out and the arrows bouncing off a near invisible wall midair. The only sign of the barrier was the faint blue shimmer in front of them both, mirrored all across their small section of the wall that the elves of Aravell on this trade delegation defended to the best of their ability. Their escape route back to Tarnossia was cut off anyway - the Portal Stone was to the northeast of the city, and between the elves and the Portal Stone stood the raiders who were besieging Alliria in the first place.

Suddenly, black fire blasted up into the sky from within the horde, and Ignisa could feel the foul magic even from this distance as the column of darkness split forth into multiple tendrils. As the defenders on the wall watched with horror, in quick succesion the tendrils smashed down upon the walls and the Allirians who were fighting on the frontlines. The shamans seemed to not have a care for the world about their own people who died in the collateral, for the section of the wall next to Ignisa crumbled like a collapsing avalanche. Defenders perished, consumed by the darkest of magics, and three of the elves of the Aravell delegation, unable to get out of the way in time, died alongside them, their protections insufficient to hold against the combined might of the shamans.

For the combined might it had to be, no one person, not even the greatest of archmages, nor the oldest and most powerful of liches, would have the power to do this spell alone.

Yet hope remained, for while the spell was powerful in itself, the victims had mostly been the simple warriors and defenders along the wall, for most of the mages were not on the wall, but were casting from vantage points behind the wall, and in essence Vardan had consumed the lives of his orc shamans and driven himself to near death simply to kill a few hundred warriors and cause a small breach in the walls. The barrage of fire continued unabated, and orders must have come down suddenly along the line, for even as the chanting orcs streamed towards the breach in the wall, the barrage of fire suddenly focused, and rather than being lobbed blindly over the wall, the fireballs now came thick and fast through the breach.

All who tried to run through the gap were instantly incinerated in fire. They died by the hundreds as more and more orcs tried to rush the gap and were killed for naught.

Ignisa looked upon the carnage and shook her head in disgust and disdain. Such waste, and all for greed of gold that was not theirs.

Turning to Ser Lindwell, Ignisa nodded towards the battlefield. "Ser Lindwell, could you defend me and mine? I will need some time to cast my next spell, and my companions will be joining me in my spellcasting." Battle manners meant that asking direct questions was permitted in Tarnossian custom. "Aorion, take five of our mages, and our armed escort. I am placing you under the command of Ser Lindwell here. The rest of you, follow my lead."

One of Ignisa's more prominent castings during the battle, previously, had been the summoning of lightning from the storm that now brewed over the burning fields and forests. The smoke hung in the air, and the sky rumbled ominously as the storm gained its own momentum from the heat beneath. Lightning flashed across the sky, ready and ripe for further instigation. Previously, she had only pulled down a tendril or two from the sky, something that didn't really require much effort, for the energy had simply been there for the taking. What would happen now if she decided to really throw all her efforts into the storm now?

Even as Ser Lindwell arranged and reorganized the defenses about her, Ignisa threw her hands up towards the sky, weaving skeins of power into the clouds, the tendrils of magic coiling and curling about her unseen to the untrained eye, but those who were mages of the elements could sense the power churning about her. Around Ignisa, those elves of Aravell who had magic in the elements sent their powers into the sky as well, adding their power to her own magic. Until Ignisa's power was but a trickle in the river of magic that coiled and wove its way into the sky, and she was no longer the source, but the guide of all that power. The storm clouds, previously disorganized and throwing stray bolts above the fray, now swirled dangerously above her, rumbling and crackling.
 
The Hilltop
What a great battle. Kobolds and Knights, heroes one and all! And then, it happened. First, his holy attack would seemingly be eaten by shadow, and then his love shook as she was struck. Struck!?! A mere mortal had assaulted his divine Goddess.

As they hurtled for the ground, Meepo knew what needed to be done. He grabbed a rope and tied it to the saddle horn and leapt from the Lyra's back. Songs would be writ, tales passed down of this singular moment.

"Make way villainy! Hero coming thro-ooooooh!" Meepo howled in pure hero fashion, swinging down on the rope. He would collide with a pair of remaining guards who had not been incinerated immediately.

He recovered quickly and flourished his holy blade. "Jump on my sword while you can, Evil! Meepo will not be so gentle!" And from the fear in their eyes, they did. Two orcs down, and he advanced on the now exposed Vardan.

He would lift his sword heavenward, summoning the holy magicks once more. The clouds would break momentarily as a ray of radiant energy shot down towards Vardan. "Feel the backhand of JUSTICE!" Meepo the Magnificent howled.

Without the cursed pillar to absorb it, the beam would hit the earth it had hit prior, with Vardan on his knees at the epicenter. He didn't know if it would kill his foe, but if it hit, it sure was going to sting.

As Lyra recovered and began to take to the air, Meepo looked for his nephew, he couldn't see him. Instead of escaping with Lyra, he would take a whiff from the air, and immediately set upon the path his nephew took. Even with his titanic over three foot frame, he was nearly invisible on the battlefield.

Lyra Arkobold Vardan
 
Left Flank
Behind the Lines - Observing Hillside


Meepo | Geladryx

Vardan had righted himself after a few moments, though he remained on his knees. If he had lungs or any need for breath, perhaps he would have been panting. As it was, he only felt tired - which itself was alarming, since he had it on good authority he was no longer given to "feeling" in general.​
A pair of orcs had come to retrieve him. Vardan sensed their approach, and likewise sensed their demise when something rancid with divine magicks fell from the sky and smote them in short order.​
Typical. Had some skyborne paladin come to finish the job? Vardan would make a mockery of him.​
An irritated hiss escaped his skull as he came wearily to his feet. "Trifling interloper, even as I am, thou'rt..."​
Something radiant erupted, and Vardan had but a few moments to process the sight of the armored kobold, shinning, shimmering, splendid, bearing down on him.​
"...Small?"​
It struck him true, and Vardan's shrieking silhouette could be seen to gradually disintegrate - bone, breasplate, robes and all - under the withering beam. When it abated, a small patch of black ash was all that remained.​
It came to gradually float away, as if carried off by the wind, which likewise airily, faintly conveyed Vardan's parting sentiments.​

"Fuck."​

 
The Hilltop

A Murder of Crows in the air, transforming into a creature that stunk of extra planar energy. Incinerating fire from the walls of Alliria dealing death to the Orcs that had stormed the small breach that had formed in the cities defenses. The Undead had fallen, the Orcs were slaughtered and thousands littered the field of battle.

It seems Alliria had risen to the challenge. The Defenders had amassed an enormous force of soldiers be they Mages on the battlements, Paladins in the field or common Foot Soldiers fighting to defend their families. Unfortunate but not entirely unexpected.

The Horde would break, the Dragon could feel it however Geladryx, the Emerald Death had an ace in the hole. The Dragon was patient and he had waited, waited until almost the last moment before he'd chosen to act.

From the Hilltop where he'd positioned himself in the rear of the Horde the frills that ran down the length of the dragons neck rose and fell, almost gyrating with energy and Geladryx, canting his head would nod to the Trumpeter that remained close-by....

"Sound the retreat."

...the dragons voice was a hiss, carrying itself across the wind while he continued to settle on his haunches.

The Trumpeter responded by signalling to the Horde, the Drummers (those who remained) would likewise change their tempo so that the survivors knew to withdraw. The Orcs that lived would understand what the change in the tempo of the drums meant, they needed to retreat and they would get another chance.

As the drums changed the dragons chest rose. Geladryx maw had stretched wide, he breathed in and his breast inflated, the orange of his eyes began to transition to a more vibrant color and pulsate with energy.

--------

Necromancy was the most powerful magic.

Evocation. Divination. Shamanism. Abjuration. Conjuration. Enchantment. Illusion. Transmutation. Divine Magic.

Magic for the lesser races.

Necromancy was command over life and death.

The Price for such Magic could often be steep, souls were quenched and burned away in acts of grandiose spellcraft. It paid to choose a time and a place.

The time was now.

--------

The Defenders of Alliria had been resourceful, they had been potent and they had been altogether foolish and frivolous with their powers. All this fire raining down from the Walls of Alliria, all this Divine Magic that allowed the Paladins and their compatriots to cut through the Undead; it all had a price. Eventually the power of the Mages would be snuffed, the Paladins would find their divine spark diminished and then they would learn what was meant when wise men said 'Discretion was the better part of Valor'.

The Emerald Deaths breast swelled, he breathed in deeper.

Every magic had a price. Often this involved the vitality of the caster. The Essence of the Soul, the vitality of the Body, the stoicism of the Mind; these things were the coinage of the Mage.

The Battlefield was now littered with the coinage that Geladryx would pay. Thousands of Dead equated to the thousands of Souls, invisible and unseen to those who had no connection to the Dark Arts or the Veil between Worlds. The Ethereal, the Spectral, the Spirits; they all existed on a plane that few could perceive.

As the Dragon breathed in the dead fueled his power. The Souls of Orcs, once soldiers in the Horde fed the Dragon. The Souls of Defenders, fallen in battle in defense of their city fed the Dragon. All of them would be denied the afterlife. When the Emerald Death drank in the souls of the dead, drawing them in from across the battlefield he would snuff them, extinguishing their eternal spark inside of himself. These Souls were the Price that Geladryx paid, offsetting the personal cost that the Dragon would need to pay so that his own vitality wouldn't need to suffer.

And then....

"RISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

...the voice that was once a sibilant whisper, a hiss carried across the battlefield in a tremendous roar that could be heard past the Outer Walls of Alliria deep into the city proper. A chill would travel across the spines of the common folk who heard it. Even battle hardened soldiers would feel a sense of dread.

In an instant the souls that Geladryx had drank in and swallowed were snuffed, extinguished from existence.

The Magic that the Emerald Deaths voice carried flowed out from the Dragon, spreading across the battlefield, the battlements and into the city of Alliria as far as behind the Outer Walls. It had been a simple command but often the most potent of magics were simple and carried grave results for all those involved.

As the Winds of Magic carried out away from the Dragon, rippling outwards from him at the epicenter the dead would stir.

Soldiers fallen in battle would twitch. Warriors cut down be sword or spell jerked. Orcs incinerated to nothing more but blackened husks stirred. Zombies, Skeletons dead twice over, smashed and shattered answered the call.

Orc. Allirian. It mattered not. All the Dead answered the call.

All the Dead rose again.

On the Outer Walls, in the Slums and littering the battlefield all of them would rise.

Unlike the Undead that had accompanied the Horde originally this new flood of undead was different though. They didn't answer to the Dragon, they answered to no one.

They existed with but a single driving force....

Hunger.

No one was safe.

@Everyone
 
The dragon leading the invading horde was not the only practitioner of necromancy upon the field of battle. Unbeknownst to the attacking force, Alliria had a necromancer of it's own acting against them. While she had largely kept her abilities to herself beforehand, she not could stand idly by while this marauding horde of beasts and horrors attacked her home.

Yet Geladryx had made a crucial error raising this new horde of masterless undead. Though they rampaged recklessly, Lyra made her move. The small goblin woman weaved her way through the chaotic battle raging on at the city walls, wrapped in a black cloak and clutching a dark metal staff baring a metallic skull atop it. Upon finding the prime location to work her magic, she slipped her hood down and rose her staff into the air.

Dark incantations were muttered beneath her breath as her eyes glowed brightly with necromantic power, before she began draining the lifeforce of rats and other vermin flooding out of an open sewer grate nearby to fuel her magic. She then channeled deathly energies through her staff, before slamming it into the ground, forming a ritual circle. These energies erupted from the circle, soaring towards a group of several dozen feral skeletal warriors rushing towards her. As they were about to attack, they suddenly came to a halt, their empty eyesockets suddenly filled with the same necromantic glow that flowed through Lyra's magic.

Slowly, the skeletal warriors turned around, waiting to follow their new mistress's command. She spoke firmly. "You serve ME now, fallen warriors. You will defend your city from this dragon and his mongrel horde. Alliria shall not fall! Take up defensive formation, and hold the line!", she commanded heroically. Her new minions obeyed, clutching their rusted armaments and forming up into a defensive shield wall, letting the enemy crash against their new defense line while she continued her ritual to gradually take control of more of the masterless undead.

@Everyone
 
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A kick pushed Khurash backward, then the entire world rumbled. The earth shook and the sky blackened and there came the crack of wood and the sundering of stone. The force of it was such that Khurash was hurled to the ground.

He rose as the shaking subsided, blood streaming from his wounds and down his muscled frame, making trickling streams in the dirt and muck that covered him.

In the commotion, a centaur bolted past, barreling him aside with the weight of his passage and separating him from his foe Be'sennar. More warriors flowed between them and Khurash lost sight of the enemy knight. He turned, finding the warrior bearing the two-handed blade who had saved him.

"Well met," growled Khurash through broad, split lips. He hacked and spat a wad of phlegm on the dirt, then looked toward the breach into which dozens of the warbands flowed.

His eyes turned toward the walls, realizing what would happen a second before it did.

Fire engulfed the warriors in the breach. They too died screaming.

Khurash then and there made a vow of wroth against the city, these mages, and these knights in too-bright armor.

He heard Geladryx's shout across the battlefield and looking about him he saw corpses rise up, tottering forward, attacking Allirians as well as orcs without care.

"Not all hunts end in a kill," Khurash muttered, nodding toward Charlemagne, "Come, you with the blade like a hammer, we should leave here."

Then he and the warrior made their way back up the hill toward safety.
 
"Yes!" Galen smiled, seeing her revitalized by the power, however dark it might be. He stood and held out a hand toward her.

"Now come on, get back u-"

Whumpf.

A wet thud and a crunch, leaving Visha Sofka holding an arm. Galen's arm. It ended in a bloody stump above the elbow.

The catapult boulder launched from the walls must have killed the boy on impact and crushed him into the grass somewhere on the other side of the knoll. The only sight visible from where she lay was a partially cracked boulder stone rolling its way down the hill.
 
The roar tearing through his lungs was quenched with a wet 'urk' as two heavy impacts crashed into him. The first of the bolts pierced through the cheap steel with relative ease, punching through the cloth, flesh, and muscle beneath until it found purchase in the marrow of his ribs. Vitae spurted free from the gaps about the hole, a searing, panicking pain spilling from the wound all the same.

The second of the bolts crunched against the harder steel of his shoulder-plate as he leaned into the downswing, denting the metal heavily but not punching through as the former had. The shot made him falter for a moment - the blade redirecting into the bloodied mud as his arms shifted instinctively with the force of it. The mercenary spat a dozen curses under his breath as he relinquished his blade. Plate-bound hands wrapped about the shaft of the bolt in a bid to see the source of his pain removed, but momentary logic won out over animal instinct. The bolt was probably barbed, and if he ripped it out now, he'd certainly bleed to death.

Charlemagne stared daggers across the battlefield, vengeful contempt coloring his glassy eyes as he homed in on Arkobold. There was no intelligence behind those eyes, no spark of the humanity his physical form embodied. For but a moment he was a vengeful god, and were it that such blasphemy was true, the Kobold would have been rendered naught but ash under his baleful gaze.

The rumbling voice of the Orc stirred Charlemagne from his unspoken threat. "I-" he struggled for his words, so intoxicating was the cocktail of agony and fury that thundered through his. His hands were trembling as he wrapped them around the handle of his greatsword.


He chanced a moment to look up then, a moment of clarity sweeping over him as he beheld the mass slaughter of the Orcs. Exterminated like ants. He had no ties to these beasts, and yet something primal twisted in his heart, an indescribable outrage that burned as much as any physical wound. "Then we've lost," he snarled through bloodied, gritted teeth as the skies darkened and the world seemed to shift in turn.

He cursed this place: cursed the city, cursed the defenders, cursed the invaders the damned dragon, all of it.

He'd hold onto that fury, carry it like a stone. "You're right," he gasped, shoulders slumping in momentary defeat as the dragon's magic weaved its way through friend and foe alike. "There's nothing left for us here now."

He would follow his strange comrade in arms, wondering why fate had drawn him to this place, his mind reeling as it struggled to understand the foul magics and horrors of the world. His muscles screamed and his body ached as he cleaved through the shambling corpses that drew too close to the duo, but all he could think of throughout the carnage as they drew further and further from the front was that the world he'd come to know upon the peaks of the Spine was nothing more than a lie.

A violent, bloody, and yet beautifully simple illusion.


Khurash
 
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Keldorn bit a laugh as her initial grin faded. Of all the Redeemed, they probably shared the closest pasts, and he remembered well when they found her. She was also one of the most independent of the band.

"I've got the continuous approval to deal with you how I see fit, Jane." It was his turn to grin cheekily. He knew that smile, it was a dangerous smile that belonged to a very dangerous woman, one that he wasn't always sure the side she fought on.

Behind them, there was a loud crash amongst the walls and the cries of those before they disintegrated. Keldorn had never seen anything like it before. Man, beast, stone, friend, and foe.

And there it was, a breach, and scores of Orcs charging for the gap. He would wave off his healers, using his sword to help push himself back to his feet. "Your part in this battle is over, Jane... rest now, recover." he would say, his voice lowered as he uttered his prayer.

Keldorn half-limped, half-walked towards the breach his blade basking itself in its holy flame. One arrow remained in his back, unable to be removed in a war zone. The initial defense crumbled and a Centaur would leap over the flood of Orcs and barrel towards Keldorn with his lance lowered.

The injured Templar cursed as he flourished his own blade and lowered his stance. Four paces away, he would dive forward, sword angled upwards. There would be a slight drag and sudden warmth as blade cut through the custom gambeson and blood streamed along his back. There was a strange squeal, he'd never heard a Centaur cry out before.

Keldorn collided roughly with the stone floor and cautioned a look back, the Centaur landed and made it a few hoofbeats before his entrails seeped from the wound on his underside and he collapsed. He didn't have the time to revel.

Chanting Orcs were now several rows deep within the city's outer wall and he would die here if he needed to. Chanting from above would answer his silent prayer for strength before the Orcs were incinerated by a flame so hot, he had to shield his own eyes.

Overhead, maelstroms of magic dotted the sky. Something had happened, something had changed. The Orcs began to flee in droves, but amidst all the carnage, the shrieks of feral undead assailed the Defenders.

Around him, Paladins and Templars of various Orders would begin to form up, those with shields holding them before the rest. As one, they would begin to advance, one gauntlet holding him back as the rest of the formation marched forward.

Pain overtook Keldorn and he dropped to his knees. His surroundings began to grow blurry and he looked to the heavens. The last thing he saw before exhaustion overtook him was a shrouded woman's worry.

Jane
 
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The Hilltop

Suddenly, the tides seemed to have turned, and not in Dauner's favor. The demon didn't have much to worry about safe the dragon itself, while parleying with it. But now that the horde was retreating to the hill, he would find himself surrounded by enemy forced. Under such circumstances, Dauner had lost a lot of bargaining power, as, should things get out of hand, he would have to battle the whole horde. Or at least what was left of it. Now, Dauner hated negotiations which weren't in his favor. He was a demon, after all, and his every deal often gave meaning to the phrase, 'a deal with the devil'.

If Dauner had been back in his prime, then slaughtering the lot of them wouldn't be much of a problem. But he wasn't. Most of the strength and power he once commanded had been forfeit, as the price of breaking through the void, and into a lesser world.

Thinking quickly, Dauner made a very un-Dauner-like decision. To retreat to the walls. If he bid his time, he would get his shot at the dragon. Perhaps, when the horde had been slaughtered by the defenders, or when their army was in disarray from the defeat, or else when they were frantically pillaging the city after their victory. Either way, the dragon would have fewer men around it, and be more accessible to Dauner's sword.

Taking a deep breath, Dauner turned to face the Geladryx. "I'd hate to part so early, and without my prize, but I'm afraid I must return to the walls now" he'd say. "Now, before you try to stop me, I guess I'll just... blink!"

As soon as Dauner finished his last word, he was gone. Not too far away, though. He'd covered some few meters to get to the metal bolts of the crossbows, swiftly dispatching the men that were around it. He placed his hands on them, quickly absorbing every bit of metallic essence he could, turning them into weaker and more elastic materials. And then, he glanced at the dragon one last time, grinning at it, as if to say they'll meet again, and then he was gone.

The Line of Defense
On The Walls

Anarchy. Chaos. Death. Those are the words that best described the battlefield. As fireballs flew by, the skies roared and the cold presence of death encompassed the battlefield, few, were the ordinary soldiers who had hope to being able to see another sunrise. When the drums sounded, ordering the retreat of the invading horde, the defenders earned themselves a few seconds of peace. To some, that was more than enough to make them hope again. But fate had something more in store for them.

As one horde retreated, another sprouted in its wake. The bodies that littered the battlefield, would once again rise, but this time as a flesh hungry, mindless horde. As the defenders rallied to face the new threat, a figure would appear above the walls, descending onto it. As soon as it did, several corpses would find themselves missing a head, cleanly cut off by the same person who would then absorb the energy that kept them animated.

Dauner quickly looked around him, noticing the carnage that ensued as the horde of undead rampaged on the walls. 'This is gonna be quite a chore' he thought, as he got down to cleaning up.

 
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Looking back to the besieging horde, Dauner once again considered what he had to gain in the invaders. Alliria was neither his home, nor a territory he had to protect. And the benefits of fighting were outweighed by the detriments. The only reason he'd wanted to fight was to face the dragon, but given how weak he'd become after crossing the void, he'd need help cutting through the dragon's forces it he was to fight it. However, the defenders had been on the defensive from the very start, and the offense only seemed to get heavier. At this rate, he wouldn't get to kill a dragon today.

He sighed as he turned to his newly resurrected subordinates. He took out three vials, slit his wrist with his sword and filled the little bottles. As he did this, his face became paler by the second. He then handed the vials to his men. "Find all those who haven't been dead for more than 30 minutes and make them drink a drop each. Get as many as you can, and then return to me". He'd come already come this far, and he wasn't going back empty-handed.

After giving his instructions, he jumped off the wall again, but this time into the city. He needed to rest to recover the essence he'd just used up. Luckily, there was an abundance of demonic energy in the air thanks to the dragon's earlier spell. He should be back on his feet in a day or two.

Dauner exits the thread​
 
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