Open Chronicles The Village of Greywood

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"My recommendation is to quickly build a chokepoint," Gavin advised. "It'll be easier to hold them off there."

“We cannot build when it is dark, it leaves us vulnerable. So a chokepoint will be built but we need to wait for daybreak.” He said to him. “Don’t worry too much mein fruend. Me and my men have dealt with situations like this.”

Just then one of the soldiers mentioned that the Undead were setting up a perimeter from the North. The old Knight frowned, Undead using tactics? Strange..... "Aye," Gavin drew his sword. "Let us meet them in battle then Sir Ebonwolf! Lead the way!"

He nodded at his squire to do the same and follow him.

Eberwolf nodded, “Alright then.”

So they went out over the earthwork bridge. They approached the first post, and the two chickenman zombies were there. Eberwolf motioned for them to crouch down and try to hide. “They won’t engage unless they think victory is guaranteed. Wait until I engage, then kill them from behind.”
 
Gavin frowned at Melusine Flarell who was still fearful and unsure of herself. "Relax young squire," he said calmly. "We'll make the most of our limited resources."

"We need to," he thought. "Or the day will be lost, to submit to fear right now would give the undead the advantage."

Gavin and Melusine followed Sir Eberwolf with the old knight jogging at brisk pace. The undead were definitely lead by somebody that was for certain. All of his years fighting the undead, Gavin knew how tactically illiterate they were unless a necromancer commanded them properly through their magic. The moment they approach the bridge, Gavin lay his eyes on two zombies who were oddly looked like overgrown chicken.......

"Chicken zombies?" Gavin mused crouching down. "Next you be telling me they'll be sending Cow Zombies." He craned his head to Sir Ebenwolf. "Aye very well," Gavin said moving through the bushes motioning Melisune to follow. "We'll attack on your signal."

This will be the first of many battles Gavin was sure about that.

Sir Eberwolf Kinniger Melusine Flarell
 
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Melusine could not resist a soft chuckle and a sheepish blush when Ser Gavin Halbert said the zombies seemed to have formerly been chickens. " Maybe this won't be so bad. " Zombies were still zombies, but somehow, this seemed less threatening than she had feared.

They seem less threatening. It doesn't mean they are, she warned herself internally. Still, at least she was relaxed enough now to think she might actually be of some help.

She followed Gavin through the bushes and waited for the signal to attack.
 
Gronk Rockchewer, the larger of the pair of chicken-orcs, turned and whispered to his partner, Verret Longarms,

"I see a man coming right at us... Did they see us, or is he just trying to sneak around? Either way we have our orders. B-B-BAAAAAWWWWWWWWK!!!"

Gronk after letting out his call stood to his full eight feet of height doing his best to make himself look intimidating, by also puffing up his chest, and giving his best scary face, while having Verret by his side hoping to scare the man into returning to the village without having to use force. Verret did his best to help by using his namesake long arms to hold his massive club over his head making himself look far more imposing.

"Return to the village, or you will die! We were tasked with keeping you people from coming and going as you pleased and I have already called for aid, so return now! Final warning!!!"
 
She glanced but a moment at the undead things that came to assail her. Seemingly more intent on delaying or perhaps apprehending than outright lethal intent, she was briefly intrigued before determining that, regardless of their purpose, the minions were in her way. She whispered as she walked while the ghouls approached while what would be breath on a living creature eked from her porcelain lips. The black mist hung before her face and she raised a hand to her mouth where the fog clung to her hand as the spell continued. As the ghouls drew within reach, she swung her arm lazily before her casting the black mist in an arc before her. The darkness shot forward, enveloping the ghouls in splotches of black haze. Wherever the spell touched, flesh withered and sloughed off exposing bone that quickly crumbled and splintered away. In a moment the ghouls that survived wailed and screeched as they staggered away while their unlucky compatriots lay still in the blackened grass.

Vulture stepped over an outstretched limb, the flesh and bone consumed by her magic. Ahead lay the town and the ramshackle siege line. The defenders appeared to be sallying forth and what looked to be... orcs with rooster's heads were trying to stop them. As they hadn't immediately charged and massacred the humans, she hazarded a guess that they were intelligent and... polite, which confused her immensely for a moment before reason regained control.

She raised a hand above her head and began chanting, her voice hollow and rhythmic. A sickly, yellow light formed in the palm of her hand and began pulsing in time with her chant. While she wanted nothing more than to retrieve her ingredients and leave, she needed to neutralize the humans that guarded them. The undead in her way were a nuisance so far, but if they simply stepped aside as she'd like...

Hopefully, at the very least, they'd cease their attempts to delay her work. Preferably before she used up all her energy...

Leroy Jenkers Melusine Flarell Sir Eberwolf Kinniger Ser Gavin Halbert Sathirena TTamark
 
"Chicken zombies?" Gavin mused crouching down. "Next you be telling me they'll be sending Cow Zombies." He craned his head to Sir Ebenwolf. "Aye very well," Gavin said moving through the bushes motioning Melisune to follow. "We'll attack on your signal."

"Friend, I have seen far stranger things than human-sized undead chickens." He said with a chuckle, these just happen to be on the more comical side of things."

Gronk Rockchewer, the larger of the pair of chicken-orcs, turned and whispered to his partner, Verret Longarms,

"I see a man coming right at us... Did they see us, or is he just trying to sneak around? Either way we have our orders. B-B-BAAAAAWWWWWWWWK!!!"

Gronk after letting out his call stood to his full eight feet of height doing his best to make himself look intimidating, by also puffing up his chest, and giving his best scary face, while having Verret by his side hoping to scare the man into returning to the village without having to use force. Verret did his best to help by using his namesake long arms to hold his massive club over his head making himself look far more imposing.

"Return to the village, or you will die! We were tasked with keeping you people from coming and going as you pleased and I have already called for aid, so return now! Final warning!!!"

Eberwolf let out a short bout of amused chuckling. "Not so much a threat as I thought. If all they have to send us is oversized barnyard fowl then we shouldn't be worried about loosing to you flightless birds. Crow all you wish rooster, you are no threat to me."

So with that he hefted his huge zweihander and rested it in wrath guard, the blade on his shoulder and ready to cleave through an opponent, and well within attacking range from the bushes in which the knight and his squire waited.
 
Using the bushes for cover Gavin tiptoed around the left flank of these zombie chickens urging Melusine to follow. The Lion of Oban had some strange adventures in his time like helping an overgrown talking Hen find her Eggs 33 years ago. It was no easy task and when Gavin found them, they were the size of a boulder. He eventually returned them to the Giant Hen nearly breaking his back in the process. Gavin didn't know what a Giant Hen was doing in the middle of the Falwood, he just chalked it up to Arethril being strange at times.

Gavin held his fist to Melusine signaling her to stop as they reached the end of the bushes. Brushing aside the leaves, Gavin got a good look of the two Undead Chicken. They lay to the west a few yards apart from Sir Eberwolf who was taunting them. "Patience," Gavin whispered to his squire. "Don't do anything brash."

He knew that Melusine wouldn't do anything without his say but there are times when panic can force a person to do foolish things. Gavin gripped the handle of his blade while he waited for Sir Eberwolf to give the signal to attack.

Melusine Flarell Sir Eberwolf Kinniger
 
Sathirena's eyes narrowed at the presence with the abominable tree, though so far it paid them no mind other than setting the unruly ghouls back in their place.


The gawking of the chickenorcs came not as a surprise, alerting the whole of the army, including Sathirena. They probably wouldn't have cooed if a minor issue came up. Whatever they found will be stomped out.

Sathirena would take no chances, the four quarters were aimed to still take their respective positions, but she would personally lead the one assigned to the locations roughly where the calls came from.
Many clanking pieces of armours shook and bones rattled like wooden chimes in the wind as the dragoness directed the quarter towards the callers.

It seemed Steve had sent here more of a boon than she originally thought of.
She passed the ghastly couple of a humanoid and the tree, only staring at them, but keeping a respectable distance between them. She wasn't entirely sure if they sensed her or her army.

They wouldn't be much further away from the callers, passing by multiples of the pairs in their short hike.
»I've came, what troubles are here, « the dragoness already began to scan the area for possible disturbance.
The soldiers that came with her or on edge and were sizeable force of elite soldiers. Much bulkier than the rabble of the wraith-captain and their eyes glowed in deep blue hues.

The rest of the reinforcements would have circled the town as planned.
 
(OOC: I wasn't sure how to respond at first. )

Melusine was no longer nervous, but that didn't mean she exactly knew what to do. She still felt bewildered. She wished for what must be the millionth time already that their reinforcements would arrive. "What exactly are we waiting to do?" she whispered to Ser Gavin Halbert. "I'm still not sure we could win, regardless of their probably being less threatening than I supposed. Is it a lost cause? There are so few of us, couldn't we all be wiped out before the reinforcements arrive?" That would mean there might be no more battles if the reinforcements arrived at all, or so Melusine speculated. Or, if they were all dead, would there be relative peace, and then the reinforcements might wipe them out? The idea of going to battle now confused her for those reasons.

Sir Eberwolf Kinniger might be able to answer some of her questions.
 
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Verret's head jerked to the side in a bird like motion, before he just as suddenly turned to face Gronk,

"Gronk I-I think... SHE is coming!"

"I know..."

"But if She... they'll..."


"I know!"


Verret did not look convinced,

"... Gronk our own Village..."


"GODS DAMN IT I KNOW!!!"


Gronk Stepped quickly towards Sir Eberwolf Kinniger swinging his club in a large arc. Verret peaked behind himself before joining in. The swings were not thrown with intent to kill, but threatened death all the same to any unlucky enough to meet the swing. These swings were defensive, with the partners carefully covering for their other's openings from them making such swings. Each one swing meant to drive him back, they were almost treating him like some wild animal ready to lunge at them without much warning.
 
Verret's head jerked to the side in a bird like motion, before he just as suddenly turned to face Gronk,

"Gronk I-I think... SHE is coming!"

"I know..."

"But if She... they'll..."

"I know!"

Verret did not look convinced,

"... Gronk our own Village..."

"GODS DAMN IT I KNOW!!!"

Gronk Stepped quickly towards Sir Eberwolf Kinniger swinging his club in a large arc. Verret peaked behind himself before joining in. The swings were not thrown with intent to kill, but threatened death all the same to any unlucky enough to meet the swing. These swings were defensive, with the partners carefully covering for their other's openings from them making such swings. Each one swing meant to drive him back, they were almost treating him like some wild animal ready to lunge at them without much warning.

An large club swung against a man-high greatsword. The club required a lot of strength, and while it hit harder, it was by no means a fast weapon, whereas swords, even big ones, we fast and nimble by design. The minute the club was halfway through it’s arc, the white-clad knight stepped back then forward and let his sword fly from wrath guard, it’s sheeting steel blade a blue as it arced towards the chicken-zombie’s shoulder, intent on removing his arm. If he didn’t retreat quickly, he’d loose his weapon arm, and if he tried to retaliate, a continuation of the momentum of the swing would bring the chicken right into the arcing blade.

The knight had trained his entire life for nothing but war, the undead chicken was on the defensive, so the advantage was with the knight by virtue of speed, precision and intent. His strength was of little consequence, the knight had the advantage here, even more so since he had two little surprises just waiting to hit the chicken zombies from the side and end their miserable existences.
 
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Were they truly so follish o try fight through their reinforcements? Sathirena passed through the defences as if they were nonexistant illusions in the air.
The visage of the dragoness was there to be seen as she stood at the frontlines of her sizeable troop. ever so closer to the callers who now initiated a fight.
She was a ghastly soul, a figure of an elf-ess covered in layers upon layers of see-through veils. Though the imprint of the sheer size of her soul turned the air deathly cold, more than the Eretejvan snow ever did.
Though that sensation was only ever felt by one's mind, never the body.

»Turn back while you still can, humans, or suffer, « her hand rose as her voice resonated through the covers. With the snap of her finger, the soldiers would aid Gonk and Verret.

--- Back at the place with the necromancers and logs ---

»Hey, what should we do with him, « uttered one of the ceromancers as he gazed upon the puppeted corpse of one of the lost villagers.

Some of the ghouls dragged in more dead wildlife.
»Ugh, take them to the pille, « huffed out the other. »And for the man...Suppose we coul send him back in.«
»Will it work? «
»OF course it will, it's the dead of the night, and he still has his voice, look. You there, scream. «
»AAAAAaaaAaaHHH. «

»More conviction!«

» AAAAHHhhhhhhhh,« the weiderganger let out a laboured scream.
»He's ready, go, go back home.«


The weiderganger began to scramble back to the village, screaming. His voice could be heared all the way to the village and the party of combatants outside it's protective embrace.
 

(OOC: Start the video at 1:14 for the attack)

Gavin frowned seeing the massive zombie chicken raise its club to attack Sir Eberwolf. He witnessed the white knight darting back as the club slammed onto the snow filled ground as combination of dirt and ice flew in the air. "Now," Gavin whispered to Melusine Flarell he knew that she was nervous and Gavin had to admit that overgrown undead Chickens simultaneously amused and disturbed him but a knight needs to displace such doubts and..... unusual sights and focus on protecting the innocent.

As Sir Eberwolf was busy engaging with the large chicken wielding the club, Gavin turned his sights on his friend raising his sword. With an efficient vertical slash fully expecting the opponent to block his attack.

Melusine Flarell Sir Eberwolf Kinniger Leroy Jenkers
 
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The chant complete, she gently lowered her hand and let the pulsing, yellow light drop to the ground. It disappeared beneath the earth with a dim flash, but she could feel the energy move and shift, growing distant as it travelled ahead.

It was neither daemon nor artificial creation, but rather something more mundane changed and altered, tethered to her will and bound with words of power and promise. The creature, if it could be called such, was a mixture of bound energy, a conglomerate of souls and spirits stitched and sewn together until it became a homogenous, warped entity. Useless for most things, the few areas it could function within it excelled like no other. For now, she allowed it to scout ahead and sniff out her target while she focused on more mundane tasks. For example, allowing man and creature to hack at one another elsewhere.

She cocked her head, her porcelain features unmoving, and altered her course. Rather than moving through the melee and the moderate risk therein, she opted for a more direct path. The little fortress loomed up, the wood and earth forming a rather large impediment to scale or carve through, yet she knew she would do neither.

She summoned the black mist once more, the whispers folding over and over as they were spoken. The mist clung to her hand once more, but instead of unleashing the magic, she held it as she walked. What had withered flesh and blackened bone would serve well to allow her entry with relative ease. What was timber but another form of flesh and bone, after all?
 
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Gronk was a proud warrior of his tribe, so he knew his opponents aim, unfortunately being able to read you opponent, and having the ability to escape unscathed are two different things. While he did his best to dodge out of the way his opponent's blade still tasted flesh. He had been winged. Still this one injury was not enough to take him out of the fight yet, he just had to favour his other arm.

As his blood slowly began to cover his arm Gronk moved into a more proper fighting stance. He was not dealing with an animal, but a warrior who seemed to have chosen his death here. If Gronk could not allow his opponent to live a bit longer and say goodbye, he would just have to shift that mercy to giving him a merciful death. Still he made no move to block the man's retreat.

Verret turned as the swing from Galvin's sword came at him. He caught the sword on one of the groves on the shaft before giving the sword a shove hoping to knock him off balance. Immediately following up by throwing a kick at him while his sword was high to push him back.

While the Chicken-Orcs fought keeping an eye on their opponents, their eye on the other side of their head stared at horror at the undead horde that arrived, and especially the one who lead them.

"You should have run..."
 
Gronk was a proud warrior of his tribe, so he knew his opponents aim, unfortunately being able to read you opponent, and having the ability to escape unscathed are two different things. While he did his best to dodge out of the way his opponent's blade still tasted flesh. He had been winged. Still this one injury was not enough to take him out of the fight yet, he just had to favour his other arm.

As his blood slowly began to cover his arm Gronk moved into a more proper fighting stance. He was not dealing with an animal, but a warrior who seemed to have chosen his death here. If Gronk could not allow his opponent to live a bit longer and say goodbye, he would just have to shift that mercy to giving him a merciful death. Still he made no move to block the man's retreat.

He stayed on the offensive, intending to cut his enemy to pieces, and give this chicken-man the fight for his life, or rather, unlife. His broad bladed sword continued its unending arc of murderous intent, aiming for the opponent’s head, wrist, thigh, shoulder, gut, shoulder again, then following no discernible pattern continued to press his attack, and always advancing as he did so. Until the new one appeared.

»Turn back while you still can, humans, or suffer, « her hand rose as her voice resonated through the covers. With the snap of her finger, the soldiers would aid Gonk and Verret.

His response to this was, “leave these lands, or you and your hordes will burn.”

The chant complete, she gently lowered her hand and let the pulsing, yellow light drop to the ground. It disappeared beneath the earth with a dim flash, but she could feel the energy move and shift, growing distant as it travelled ahead.

It was neither daemon nor artificial creation, but rather something more mundane changed and altered, tethered to her will and bound with words of power and promise. The creature, if it could be called such, was a mixture of bound energy, a conglomerate of souls and spirits stitched and sewn together until it became a homogenous, warped entity. Useless for most things, the few areas it could function within it excelled like no other. For now, she allowed it to scout ahead and sniff out her target while she focused on more mundane tasks. For example, allowing man and creature to hack at one another elsewhere.

She cocked her head, her porcelain features unmoving, and altered her course. Rather than moving through the melee and the moderate risk therein, she opted for a more direct path. The little fortress loomed up, the wood and earth forming a rather large impediment to scale or carve through, yet she knew she would do neither.

She summoned the black mist once more, the whispers folding over and over as they were spoken. The mist clung to her hand once more, but instead of unleashing the magic, she held it as she walked. What had withered flesh and blackened bone would serve well to allow her entry with relative ease. What was timber but another form of flesh and bone, after all?

She would find behind the wall men in uniform armor working swiftly to build T frames, with the stem of the T being several times longer than the cross, and these were also mounted on poles running from rooftop to rooftop. It would have the distinct picture of a siege engine.

Until she was spied, and the men inside swiftly surrounded her and presented their halberds to her, “state your intentions.”
 
Melusine was not really sure what exactly she did when Ser Gavin Halbert told her to strike. It was as if she were half in and half out of her body. Just how did one fight the undead anyway? Vampires, she knew, but those were slightly different- they had things they didn't like. Silver, crosses, or wolfsbane. The undead, however, presumably liked flesh, and that was all she knew. Don't let them eat your brain. That was her one thought.

It didn't mean she was unaware of striking, she just wasn't exactly sure what a proper strike was in this case. She whirled, dodged, parried, and clanged swords more than a few times, only hoping the noise wouldn't split her head open and make zombies finding her brain an easier reality.
 
The puppeteered human ran forth still screaming for help, his voice still rang through towards where the skirmish was to unfold.
Though now he was joined by another... And then another until a small group of survivors was stuck outside the woods. Quite familiar voices too.
Nobody would know that they were found dead from the first conflict or were the killed lost that were left behind in the woods.
The necromancers up back seemed to work on their own just fine.

The undead army advanced forth. A snicker formed on Sathirena's ghastly maw as she noticed that there were only a few people present. »Ha-ha-ha. I will take your people and you too, and you can't save them all!! Let alone when you'll be my thrall!! « shouted the ghastly presence. Her voice blending with the screams of the 'survivors'.

There was a fair chance the chicken orcs would get harmed, in a brief moment a deep row of armed skeletal soldiers stood side by side them. Or rather, slightly behind them.
A sea of sword arms and spears weaved forth and back. One arm reached for Gonk and yanked him back behind the shield wall. One arm reached for Verrett to have him join the formation, but the pitiful skeletal limb was too short to grab for the chicken enthralled in combat.
Whoever came too close, a spear was thrust their way.
 
Armed men barred her way, something she had come to expect at this point. She gave them but a moment's thought, her mind focused on the task at hand. She brought the hand up that held the mist and blew it from her palm as a child would flower petals into the wind. The mist flew forward as if taken by a sudden gust of heavy wind and enveloped the halberdiers in wisps of darkness.

The closest screamed in terror as the black, magical fog ate at exposed skin and rotted the muscle beneath. Like the ghouls, those caught fully in the mist quickly crumpled, their flesh horribly decayed and exposed bones withered and blackened. Survivors stumbled away clutching at foul wounds while those yet untouched staggered back in visible terror at the creature in their midst.

Vulture cocked her head, her porcelain face motionless as she regarded the men left before her. She slowly raised a hand, fingers pointing at the ground below. Gray mist rose slowly from the earth below as she stepped forward, the fog swirling around her feet and slowly blanketing the area. Those within the spell's effect quickly found their visibility greatly reduced, individuals turning into vague shapes and shadows in the haze.

Meanwhile, the blackened and withered bodies on the ground began to twitch...