02-19-2018, 10:19 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-19-2018, 10:22 AM by Shang Tsung.)
The wagon jiggled as it traversed the uneven terrain.
Argento was lucid now, but the memories were still there—vivid in his mind’s eye.
“They’re thinning out!” Argento shouted as he swung his glowing hammer and crashed through a trio of orcs trying to pounce him.
From behind the horde of dying orcs, a distinctly human voice could be heard above the clamor of steel weapons. “Your time is limited, interlopers!”
After a moment of silence, a thunderclap filled the room, and a wave of force threw back everyone fighting near the entrance of the church. Tordeck grimaced as he struck the wall a few feet from the door.
Despite the ringing in his head, the rage burned stronger, and he found himself on his feet faster than his allies.
In front of him, the orc warriors were regaining their senses, and while there was only a dozen or so of them, the dwarf noticed something a little less pleasant. The various pews in the church, about half of which were filled with orcs, were now empty.
The chanting had stopped, and nearly three dozen additional orcs had sat up from the stone benches and turned to face the quartet of warriors. In the background, Tordeck swore he saw the skinny elf dodging away from a group of shambling skeletons, but the green bodies moved to cloud his view.
“More want to die?” Tordeck roared as he smacked one of the flat sides of his ax. “Let me taste yer bits!”
***
The monk ducked under a lethargic swing. With a swift jab of a bandage-wrapped fist, he smashed apart the mostly skeletal dwarf’s spine near the base of its ribcage. Even as its severed torso fell backwards, the animated corpse kept trying to grab Damien, who pivoted and sidestepped another stiff jab from a rusted sword.
A quick kick removed the skull of the nearest skeleton, but before Damien could turn to deal with the next, there were three of them swarming around him. Although unarmed, the mostly skeletal creatures threw themselves around him in an attempt to strangle or smother him with their lightly armored husks.
“Get… get off,” Damien rasped as he removed a helmet from one of the dwarves and used it to bash off the walking corpse’s skull. With one set of fingers sliding off his body, the monk twisted and used the ancient steel cap to smash away a second dwarf.
Before he could find the third, he felt a sharp, blinding pain as a sword tore through his thin cloth armor and sank into his back.
With a grimace of pain, Damien frantically smashed away the skeleton in front of him, but before he could turn to deal with the sword now twisting through his flesh, it suddenly stopped. A beat later, he heard the sound of bones crashing against the floor behind him.
After gingerly removing the blade, Damien glanced and saw that a finely aimed crossbow bolt had smashed through one of the skeleton’s cervical vertebra. The monk followed the path the quarrel had taken and spied his talented ally reloading his crossbow in the far corner of the room
‘You’re welcome,’ the human mouthed with a grin as two more skeletons came shambling toward Damien.
*
Bauru burned with fury. For the first time since he’d picked up the blade in that old, crumbling elven crypt, Solomon felt like it was more alive than it had ever been.
Its rage burned like fire through his veins and made it hard for him to think clearly as he watched his orcish zealots cut down at the front of the church. Behind him, another pair of warriors was struggling to deal with the centuries-old corpses of the chapel’s former parishioners.
Kill. Kill everything.
Were those his thoughts?
Solomon couldn’t be sure anymore. It was too hard to focus on anything other than the anger and frustration that seemed too strong and too alien to be his own.
KILL.
Was he moving his body at this point? He didn’t remember walking forward, but as his vision started to sharpen once more, he saw that he was advancing toward the four at the front of the church. His fists were clenched around Bauru’s handle as if it was the last possession he’d ever own.
The eyes on the blade seemed to twitch back and forth. Had they ever moved before? Were the pupils always that large? Did they always look so bloodshot? So menacing?
The answers never came. Solomon blacked out.
Yet his body, sword clenched tightly in his hands, broke into a sprint toward the attackers.
***
Had they really been honest men?
Argento had spent a lot of time reflecting upon his decisions.
Is Tyrael an honest man?
Legends in Camelot had spoken of Tyrael as some sort of angel. After all, who but an angel could smite the forces of evil so easily and so selflessly? Stories told of a winged figure wreathed in white charging head-first into an onslaught of devils and demons.
The cloaked figure skulking in the mountains was not an angel.
He was a guerilla, just like his lackeys.
Did that make Argento a stooge? The paladin reached to his chest and rested his hand on the emblem of the Divine Sun. He would do this task for the false angel, and then he would be free from the Underverse.
He would feel the Sun again.
***
[i]The floor of the church could no longer be seen.
Nearly an inch and a half of orcish blood and viscera obscured what had once been finely crafted stone tiles inlaid with ancient scripts. Every step Argento took sloshed around the garish layer of ichor, which had painted his boots and greaves a hellish shade of crimson.
Anyone unacquainted with the horror of a battlefield would have found the scene enough to turn their stomach. Fortunately, none of the warriors fighting through the mob of zealous orcs were bothered by the growing gore surrounding them.
In the background, black smoke wafted out through one of the exits near the back of the chapel. The thick, curling clouds made their way up toward the high ceiling, but given more time, they would soon fill the room.
Argento didn’t know what the place had looked like before their arrival—he’d never had a chance to enjoy whatever beauty may have once been here. All he knew now was that it looked more like the Twisted Hells than an old dwarven chapel.
“You dare defile my stronghold?”
Although the voice sounded human, there was a distinct wrongness to it. Almost as if there were two voices talking at once, with one being something not at altogether human.
The paladin knocked down the orc before him, crushed its skull with a hammer blow, and then looked up the central aisle to see Solomon stalking toward them.
Unlike their last engagement, the dark knight seemed a little off. His movements were jerky, as if he was trying to shake off some soreness or unresponsiveness in his muscles. Eyes that had once been expressive and sharp were now dull and devoid of any emotion. The sword in his grip glowed much like Argento’s divinely infused hammer, but the eyeball-laden blade reeked of malice. Its fires were pure hatred and ill-will.
That sword must be destroyed.
“Come now, Blackguard!” Argento roared. “Let me purify your immortal soul!”
Solomon’s mouth twisted into an uncomfortable sneer as he charged at them. His hoarse voice was barely human as it roared across the chapel. “I will rend your flesh, Paladin!”
Tordeck took that as a moment to interject. “By all means, you may try!” The barbarian rushed to join the battle.
Even though his stout body was in full plate, the mixture of his trained rage and the natural adrenaline coursing through his veins let Tordeck leap one of the pews to get within swinging distance. His gore-soaked ax was intercepted a few inches from Solomon’s neck by the villain’s blade. The dwarf growled an obscenity as the sudden and powerful parry knocked him off balance.
A swift kick threw Tordeck onto his back, and a second sent his weapon skittering down between two pews.
“You ba—” The dwarf’s curse was cut off mid-syllable by a boot to the face that sent him spiraling toward unconsciousness.
Instead of finishing off the stunned barbarian, Solomon stepped over his prone form and advanced toward Argento, Quarion, and Dengar. “We will enjoy watching you die a second time, Champion, and then I’ll go finish the rest of your tribe.”
“Bold words,” the orc rasped as he and Argento moved forward to engage the blackguard. Behind them, Quarion started to whisper another incantation.
***
The demons fell upon the little wagon.
For his part, Argento feigned being caught unware, despite how acutely aware he was of every little thing around him.
There was a howl as a claw tore open the throat of the wagon’s operator. The body slumped to the side and sputtered red fluid as the panicked horse broke free from the cart and rushed off into the ashen wilderness. Argento paid no heed to the slain driver, because he knew that it wasn’t a person. While Tyrael had initially wanted to provide a real operator, the paladin had insisted that no other souls risk themselves in what could likely be a fool’s errand.
Clawed hands grabbed at Argento as he opened his eyes to glare at the collection of pig-faced monsters. He could tell by their expressions that they were hoping for some sort of fight, and while the paladin was certain they would offer him little resistance, he offered no physical rebuttal. He allowed them to believe they had ambushed a slumbering traveler, and within a few minutes, he was being crammed into a cage.
***
Ravik stepped forward and plunged his wrist-blade up through the skull of the skeleton. With a solid twist, he popped the crumbling bone away from the rest of the body, and the reanimated remains toppled into a heap before him.
After discarding the skull with a heavy flick of his wrist, the assassin pulled up his crossbow and fired a bolt at the warlock. Now that the skeletons were less in number, he finally had a clear shot.
Unfortunately, the speaker twisted their body at the last second, and the bolt sailed over their left shoulder.
Whoever they were, their reading and spell-crafting didn’t absorb that much of their awareness. Ravik would need something else to give him the advantage. He shot a quick look over at the elven brawler.
For someone from such a fragile race, Damien could handle himself rather well. Aside from the oozing wound near the small of his back, the elf had absorbed only a handful of scrapes and cuts as he dealt with nearly twenty shambling bodies. If all elven warriors were like Damien, Ravik was glad they opted to stay behind their walls.
Turning his focus from the monk, the assassin let out a long sigh and tapped into the handful of self-taught magical skills he had at his disposal.
A pair of skeletons were lurching their way toward him, but he kept his focus. He felt the air around him hum with heat, and just like that, the two corpses stopped in their tracks.
They stared at him for a few moments longer before shifting their focus over to the monk.
Excellent.
Although the invisibility trick was a potent tool, he rarely had the time and focus to activate it. Most situations where he would want to use the trick, he usually had half a dozen guardsmen or hired bodyguards hot on his heels.
With his surroundings secure, Ravik jogged to the other side of the elevated platform. Digging into his satchel, he found his desired vial and removed the cork. In a perfect world, a few drops would do the trick, but the assassin let the slimy poison coat the head of the quarrel. He had no reason to believe the cloaked individual would have a normal constitution, regardless of their species. In his profession, ‘better safe than sorry’ was a good quote to live by.
Once the poison was capped and back in its protective pouch, Ravik lifted the crossbow and took a moment to study his target. He blocked out the noise around him—another skill he’d trained over the years—and analyzed every visible facet about the cloaked individual.
Soft steps took him over to a new vantage point, giving him very little additional information. Even so, he’d need as much as he could muster given the clothes that masked the individual’s physical features.
***
Argento had never faced anyone quite like Solomon. Even the hellions he’d slain in defense of Ceuta weren’t as vicious as the black knight who easily contended with a trained paladin and a ferocious, rage-fueled Orc Champion.
Solomon’s blade seemed to move of its own accord as it danced between separate parries and deflections. Every now and again, their foe would even manage to lash out with a fist or a blow from the weapon’s pommel!
At the rate they were going, both Argento and Dengar would be exhausted before they could manage to defeat Solomon.
What is that cleric doing?
One hundred percent of Argento’s focus had to be on the swordsman before him. Anything less would result in his death. So to say he was almost thrown off guard when he saw that Quarion was now behind Solomon was an understatement. The paladin made brief eye contact with the cleric, enough to understand that he had to keep doing what he was doing.
“Die, villain!” Argento roared as he stepped forward and swung his hammer with renewed fury. Once more, Solomon bashed aside the blow with strength beyond what should have been his physical limit.
As the knight moved to deflect the ax blow coming from his left, Quarion reached out and grabbed hold of their foe’s shoulders.
In an instant, the expression on Solomon’s face became one of confusion and pain. From between Quarion’s gauntleted fingers, steam started to bubble up as Solomon’s armor began to liquefy beneath the cleric’s grasp.
“Damn you!” Solomon roared as he threw his head back at the elf.
The cleric growled and held his hand in place until a second head butt shattered his nose. Quarion lost his grip, but he’d already done the damage.
The knight’s pauldrons and much of the armor from his upper arms and around his collar bones had been outright dissolved or reduced to malformed steel putty.
In his rage, Solomon twisted around and swung his glimmering blade. The foul weapon tore through the cleric’s chest plate and knocked him to the ground, where he lay in a motionless heap.
“Villain!” Argento boomed as he moved forward. He was met quickly with a blow from the broad face of Solomon’s sword. As he stumbled back, the paladin failed to block the sudden burst of force that struck him and bowled him over like a metal-encased ragdoll.
As his head crushed against the wall of the chapel, the paladin stared forward into the carnage as his vision blurred. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a shriek.
***
Argento spoke nothing on the journey.
Better they think him dumb and mute as they took him to the gladiatorial arenas. The less the paladin had to converse with festering hell-swine, the better.
Within six hours, he found himself sitting in the rancid blood works beneath the colosseum. He wasn’t sure if this was the exact pit where he would find Tyrael’s agent, but it would have to be the start of his investigation.
Once he found Melthor, he could be finished with all of this.
The sooner, the better.[/i]
Argento was lucid now, but the memories were still there—vivid in his mind’s eye.
***
“They’re thinning out!” Argento shouted as he swung his glowing hammer and crashed through a trio of orcs trying to pounce him.
From behind the horde of dying orcs, a distinctly human voice could be heard above the clamor of steel weapons. “Your time is limited, interlopers!”
After a moment of silence, a thunderclap filled the room, and a wave of force threw back everyone fighting near the entrance of the church. Tordeck grimaced as he struck the wall a few feet from the door.
Despite the ringing in his head, the rage burned stronger, and he found himself on his feet faster than his allies.
In front of him, the orc warriors were regaining their senses, and while there was only a dozen or so of them, the dwarf noticed something a little less pleasant. The various pews in the church, about half of which were filled with orcs, were now empty.
The chanting had stopped, and nearly three dozen additional orcs had sat up from the stone benches and turned to face the quartet of warriors. In the background, Tordeck swore he saw the skinny elf dodging away from a group of shambling skeletons, but the green bodies moved to cloud his view.
“More want to die?” Tordeck roared as he smacked one of the flat sides of his ax. “Let me taste yer bits!”
***
The monk ducked under a lethargic swing. With a swift jab of a bandage-wrapped fist, he smashed apart the mostly skeletal dwarf’s spine near the base of its ribcage. Even as its severed torso fell backwards, the animated corpse kept trying to grab Damien, who pivoted and sidestepped another stiff jab from a rusted sword.
A quick kick removed the skull of the nearest skeleton, but before Damien could turn to deal with the next, there were three of them swarming around him. Although unarmed, the mostly skeletal creatures threw themselves around him in an attempt to strangle or smother him with their lightly armored husks.
“Get… get off,” Damien rasped as he removed a helmet from one of the dwarves and used it to bash off the walking corpse’s skull. With one set of fingers sliding off his body, the monk twisted and used the ancient steel cap to smash away a second dwarf.
Before he could find the third, he felt a sharp, blinding pain as a sword tore through his thin cloth armor and sank into his back.
With a grimace of pain, Damien frantically smashed away the skeleton in front of him, but before he could turn to deal with the sword now twisting through his flesh, it suddenly stopped. A beat later, he heard the sound of bones crashing against the floor behind him.
After gingerly removing the blade, Damien glanced and saw that a finely aimed crossbow bolt had smashed through one of the skeleton’s cervical vertebra. The monk followed the path the quarrel had taken and spied his talented ally reloading his crossbow in the far corner of the room
‘You’re welcome,’ the human mouthed with a grin as two more skeletons came shambling toward Damien.
*
Bauru burned with fury. For the first time since he’d picked up the blade in that old, crumbling elven crypt, Solomon felt like it was more alive than it had ever been.
Its rage burned like fire through his veins and made it hard for him to think clearly as he watched his orcish zealots cut down at the front of the church. Behind him, another pair of warriors was struggling to deal with the centuries-old corpses of the chapel’s former parishioners.
Kill. Kill everything.
Were those his thoughts?
Solomon couldn’t be sure anymore. It was too hard to focus on anything other than the anger and frustration that seemed too strong and too alien to be his own.
KILL.
Was he moving his body at this point? He didn’t remember walking forward, but as his vision started to sharpen once more, he saw that he was advancing toward the four at the front of the church. His fists were clenched around Bauru’s handle as if it was the last possession he’d ever own.
The eyes on the blade seemed to twitch back and forth. Had they ever moved before? Were the pupils always that large? Did they always look so bloodshot? So menacing?
The answers never came. Solomon blacked out.
Yet his body, sword clenched tightly in his hands, broke into a sprint toward the attackers.
***
Had they really been honest men?
Argento had spent a lot of time reflecting upon his decisions.
Is Tyrael an honest man?
Legends in Camelot had spoken of Tyrael as some sort of angel. After all, who but an angel could smite the forces of evil so easily and so selflessly? Stories told of a winged figure wreathed in white charging head-first into an onslaught of devils and demons.
The cloaked figure skulking in the mountains was not an angel.
He was a guerilla, just like his lackeys.
Did that make Argento a stooge? The paladin reached to his chest and rested his hand on the emblem of the Divine Sun. He would do this task for the false angel, and then he would be free from the Underverse.
He would feel the Sun again.
***
[i]The floor of the church could no longer be seen.
Nearly an inch and a half of orcish blood and viscera obscured what had once been finely crafted stone tiles inlaid with ancient scripts. Every step Argento took sloshed around the garish layer of ichor, which had painted his boots and greaves a hellish shade of crimson.
Anyone unacquainted with the horror of a battlefield would have found the scene enough to turn their stomach. Fortunately, none of the warriors fighting through the mob of zealous orcs were bothered by the growing gore surrounding them.
In the background, black smoke wafted out through one of the exits near the back of the chapel. The thick, curling clouds made their way up toward the high ceiling, but given more time, they would soon fill the room.
Argento didn’t know what the place had looked like before their arrival—he’d never had a chance to enjoy whatever beauty may have once been here. All he knew now was that it looked more like the Twisted Hells than an old dwarven chapel.
“You dare defile my stronghold?”
Although the voice sounded human, there was a distinct wrongness to it. Almost as if there were two voices talking at once, with one being something not at altogether human.
The paladin knocked down the orc before him, crushed its skull with a hammer blow, and then looked up the central aisle to see Solomon stalking toward them.
Unlike their last engagement, the dark knight seemed a little off. His movements were jerky, as if he was trying to shake off some soreness or unresponsiveness in his muscles. Eyes that had once been expressive and sharp were now dull and devoid of any emotion. The sword in his grip glowed much like Argento’s divinely infused hammer, but the eyeball-laden blade reeked of malice. Its fires were pure hatred and ill-will.
That sword must be destroyed.
“Come now, Blackguard!” Argento roared. “Let me purify your immortal soul!”
Solomon’s mouth twisted into an uncomfortable sneer as he charged at them. His hoarse voice was barely human as it roared across the chapel. “I will rend your flesh, Paladin!”
Tordeck took that as a moment to interject. “By all means, you may try!” The barbarian rushed to join the battle.
Even though his stout body was in full plate, the mixture of his trained rage and the natural adrenaline coursing through his veins let Tordeck leap one of the pews to get within swinging distance. His gore-soaked ax was intercepted a few inches from Solomon’s neck by the villain’s blade. The dwarf growled an obscenity as the sudden and powerful parry knocked him off balance.
A swift kick threw Tordeck onto his back, and a second sent his weapon skittering down between two pews.
“You ba—” The dwarf’s curse was cut off mid-syllable by a boot to the face that sent him spiraling toward unconsciousness.
Instead of finishing off the stunned barbarian, Solomon stepped over his prone form and advanced toward Argento, Quarion, and Dengar. “We will enjoy watching you die a second time, Champion, and then I’ll go finish the rest of your tribe.”
“Bold words,” the orc rasped as he and Argento moved forward to engage the blackguard. Behind them, Quarion started to whisper another incantation.
***
The demons fell upon the little wagon.
For his part, Argento feigned being caught unware, despite how acutely aware he was of every little thing around him.
There was a howl as a claw tore open the throat of the wagon’s operator. The body slumped to the side and sputtered red fluid as the panicked horse broke free from the cart and rushed off into the ashen wilderness. Argento paid no heed to the slain driver, because he knew that it wasn’t a person. While Tyrael had initially wanted to provide a real operator, the paladin had insisted that no other souls risk themselves in what could likely be a fool’s errand.
Clawed hands grabbed at Argento as he opened his eyes to glare at the collection of pig-faced monsters. He could tell by their expressions that they were hoping for some sort of fight, and while the paladin was certain they would offer him little resistance, he offered no physical rebuttal. He allowed them to believe they had ambushed a slumbering traveler, and within a few minutes, he was being crammed into a cage.
***
Ravik stepped forward and plunged his wrist-blade up through the skull of the skeleton. With a solid twist, he popped the crumbling bone away from the rest of the body, and the reanimated remains toppled into a heap before him.
After discarding the skull with a heavy flick of his wrist, the assassin pulled up his crossbow and fired a bolt at the warlock. Now that the skeletons were less in number, he finally had a clear shot.
Unfortunately, the speaker twisted their body at the last second, and the bolt sailed over their left shoulder.
Whoever they were, their reading and spell-crafting didn’t absorb that much of their awareness. Ravik would need something else to give him the advantage. He shot a quick look over at the elven brawler.
For someone from such a fragile race, Damien could handle himself rather well. Aside from the oozing wound near the small of his back, the elf had absorbed only a handful of scrapes and cuts as he dealt with nearly twenty shambling bodies. If all elven warriors were like Damien, Ravik was glad they opted to stay behind their walls.
Turning his focus from the monk, the assassin let out a long sigh and tapped into the handful of self-taught magical skills he had at his disposal.
A pair of skeletons were lurching their way toward him, but he kept his focus. He felt the air around him hum with heat, and just like that, the two corpses stopped in their tracks.
They stared at him for a few moments longer before shifting their focus over to the monk.
Excellent.
Although the invisibility trick was a potent tool, he rarely had the time and focus to activate it. Most situations where he would want to use the trick, he usually had half a dozen guardsmen or hired bodyguards hot on his heels.
With his surroundings secure, Ravik jogged to the other side of the elevated platform. Digging into his satchel, he found his desired vial and removed the cork. In a perfect world, a few drops would do the trick, but the assassin let the slimy poison coat the head of the quarrel. He had no reason to believe the cloaked individual would have a normal constitution, regardless of their species. In his profession, ‘better safe than sorry’ was a good quote to live by.
Once the poison was capped and back in its protective pouch, Ravik lifted the crossbow and took a moment to study his target. He blocked out the noise around him—another skill he’d trained over the years—and analyzed every visible facet about the cloaked individual.
Soft steps took him over to a new vantage point, giving him very little additional information. Even so, he’d need as much as he could muster given the clothes that masked the individual’s physical features.
***
Argento had never faced anyone quite like Solomon. Even the hellions he’d slain in defense of Ceuta weren’t as vicious as the black knight who easily contended with a trained paladin and a ferocious, rage-fueled Orc Champion.
Solomon’s blade seemed to move of its own accord as it danced between separate parries and deflections. Every now and again, their foe would even manage to lash out with a fist or a blow from the weapon’s pommel!
At the rate they were going, both Argento and Dengar would be exhausted before they could manage to defeat Solomon.
What is that cleric doing?
One hundred percent of Argento’s focus had to be on the swordsman before him. Anything less would result in his death. So to say he was almost thrown off guard when he saw that Quarion was now behind Solomon was an understatement. The paladin made brief eye contact with the cleric, enough to understand that he had to keep doing what he was doing.
“Die, villain!” Argento roared as he stepped forward and swung his hammer with renewed fury. Once more, Solomon bashed aside the blow with strength beyond what should have been his physical limit.
As the knight moved to deflect the ax blow coming from his left, Quarion reached out and grabbed hold of their foe’s shoulders.
In an instant, the expression on Solomon’s face became one of confusion and pain. From between Quarion’s gauntleted fingers, steam started to bubble up as Solomon’s armor began to liquefy beneath the cleric’s grasp.
“Damn you!” Solomon roared as he threw his head back at the elf.
The cleric growled and held his hand in place until a second head butt shattered his nose. Quarion lost his grip, but he’d already done the damage.
The knight’s pauldrons and much of the armor from his upper arms and around his collar bones had been outright dissolved or reduced to malformed steel putty.
In his rage, Solomon twisted around and swung his glimmering blade. The foul weapon tore through the cleric’s chest plate and knocked him to the ground, where he lay in a motionless heap.
“Villain!” Argento boomed as he moved forward. He was met quickly with a blow from the broad face of Solomon’s sword. As he stumbled back, the paladin failed to block the sudden burst of force that struck him and bowled him over like a metal-encased ragdoll.
As his head crushed against the wall of the chapel, the paladin stared forward into the carnage as his vision blurred. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a shriek.
***
Argento spoke nothing on the journey.
Better they think him dumb and mute as they took him to the gladiatorial arenas. The less the paladin had to converse with festering hell-swine, the better.
Within six hours, he found himself sitting in the rancid blood works beneath the colosseum. He wasn’t sure if this was the exact pit where he would find Tyrael’s agent, but it would have to be the start of his investigation.
Once he found Melthor, he could be finished with all of this.
The sooner, the better.[/i]